little pieces of soul we lost along the way

by Inkonstantin

Summary:

Experiences in fragments. Loneliness, pain, longing, love - immortalize it with a legacy, freeze it in a frame or lose it in the darkness between stars, but everyone leaves pieces of who they are and pieces of those who have made them who they've become.

(JJK drabble exercise/writing game, ft. atmospheric wine feelings and song inspiration.)

Notes:

i have a bit of synesthesia so my senses get a bit tangled up with each other, wine is my fav alcohol because for whatever reason the tastes and aromas give me atmospheric feelings. moods, colors, and each one reminds me of a song, that songs moods and colors and emotions. so wine-tasting is very fun, and it's fun to write with those feelings, and since i'm obsessed with jjk rn, when i try a new wine and identify its song i then think of what jjk character or characters it fits and write something listening to the song while drinking the wine. it's just kind of a fun game.

posting just in case anyone might get some enjoyment out of any of the pieces

Chapter 1: Toji: Seduce / Destroy

Notes:

wine was a sparkling rosé, song was Lucille Croft - Seduce / Destroy

 

this song was so Toji lol

---

Toji’s life went something like this: seduce; gamble; destroy.

That was basically all he did. Seduce women who would let him life off their generosity; gamble away money he never won back; kill the targets that he was hired to.

In a way, it was all just trying to feel alive: the pleasure of sex; the excitement of gambling; the thrill of killing, destroying. They were the only things that assuaged the numbness and made him feel something like human emotion.

He could tear the sorcerer world apart, if he really wanted to. But it wasn’t worth it to do work for free.

So in the end his life was just this: seduce, but only as much as necessary; gamble, but never enough to lose all his money; destroy, but never anyone of his own will, only those who others wanted dead enough to pay him to do it.

He just wanted to live the easy life, doing only just enough to feel alive and get paid. Just enough thrill, but never too much. Always playing it safe.

Seduce; gamble; destroy;—but taking it easy. Easy, easy, because there wasn’t anything to truly live for anyway. Not when he nearly lacked human emotion.

Up until Gojo Satoru, when he got carried away.

What doesn’t kill me better run—

When Toji saw Gojo Satoru back from the dead, he should have turned tail and run.

But seeing the Six Eyes there, a godly monster in the flesh, the very epitome of all that had denied Toji, degraded and dehumanized him, he was, for the first time, overcome with an insatiable appetite for destruction.

With all his jobs, he had only ever worked with certainties, optimizing his chances for success until they were indubitabilities; with Gojo Satoru returned with reversed cursed energy, he’d gambled; and like with all of his gambles, he’d lost.

Seduce; gamble; destroy. That was all his life had been, at best. Nothing more.

Ah, but one of his seductions had landed him with a son, Megumi. He’d been supposed to make good money off of the kid.

In whatever case, his life certainly wasn’t one that anyone would mourn.

(He’d forgotten about Naoya.)

Chapter 2: Sukuna: Royalty

Notes:

wine was a pinot grigio, song was Egzod & Maestro Chives - Royalty (Lyrics) ft. Neoni

 

this song could rlly only be Sukuna

---

They called Sukuna the King of Curses. He hadn’t given himself that name. They’d come up with that themselves.

He wasn’t even curse. But then again, he wasn’t really human, much less a normal sorcerer.

He really was royalty. So much so that they’d realized that all by themselves, without him saying anything.

King of Curses. A Natural Calamity. Cold-hearted. But he was just getting started.

Even when they killed him, he was just getting started.

Just killing time until his true death—but as if they could! As if they were enough to kill him! He was so much more than them. They were already acknowledging him as royalty; they should also be swearing their loyalty. Because he’d be taking they world. They’d see.

(But it would be so much more interesting if they fought him, no matter how paltry their attempts—)

He was just killing time, and killing them, until they finally, finally figured out how to actually kill him. Who else was as unkillable as he? Not even Gojo Satoru had split his soul into cursed objects just to keep on living! Not even Gojo Satoru was anything like a king!

The King of Curses, even though he wasn’t even a curse, he’d been born human. But he’d made himself a Cursed Object, just to take the world—because why shouldn’t he? He was royalty. So much above them all. It was his right to do as he pleased.

(Gojo Satoru had been so much more than anyone else—but even he hadn’t been enough.)

They called him dangerous, because he’d broken all their cages. As if he’d take that! Four arms, four eyes, two mouths—what an abomination! They’d left him for dead—ah, but they should have known better! They should have killed him when he’d been born! But they’d let him live, because they’d all looked down upon him, and it had pleased them to do so—and what had that brought them? Nothing but their deaths at his hands!

He guessed they’d never learn.

Every time they tried to break him, it was only more pain to burn. Only more pain that made him feel alive.

Bring it!! Bring it all! He welcomed it! He truly did!

Let them do everything they could! It would be useless, useless.

If they were only smart, like Uraume, they’d be kneeling at his feet, calling him royalty and swearing their loyalty.

Only Uraume had ever had eyes that could see. Not even Gojo Satoru, the famed Six Eyes, had seen!

Ryomen Sukuna was royalty, and everyone else was so far below him, only idle entertainment at best.

King of Curses, they called him, as if he wasn’t human. But he liked it that way, because it meant that they fought him—and let them fight him! Let them keep fighting him!! Let them fight them until all of them or else he were dead!!

He was royalty and he deserved to be entertained—and to only have the most fitting end.

Let them come, let them come, until they finally managed to overwhelm him—as if!! As if their paltry selves would ever be enough to do such a thing!! And only because of Gojo Satoru would they even come close—

Ah, Gojo Satoru, Sukuna would truly never forget him. So strong, for a peasant. Not enough to be true royalty—but ah, he had been strong, and it had been a true pleasure to fight him.

These ants couldn’t even compare. And so why did Sukuna humor them?

Ah, but Gojo Satoru had given him such a taste of what an opponent could be, had given him so much hope, that all these peasants kept failing—

But what could Sukuna do, when they were all that was left in this worthless world?

He’d fight them until all of them were dead, or else he was.

After all, he was royalty.

As if he could go out any differently.

Let the peasants rise up and do their very best to overthrow him, or else be crushed by the kingly power of his hand.

Notes:

the current manga chapters are killing me, Sukuna after Gojo's death is like Yagami Light after L's death i'm dying from the pain

Chapter 3: Satoru: Call of the Void

Notes:

wine was a red blend, song was KROWW - Call of the Void

 

very short but i'm super pleased with the character ramifications of this one

---

None of them understood the nature of his power. The all-containing, all-consuming void. Infinity itself, endless distance and an endless abyss.

The world shattered at his touch, dust on his fingertips. He licked it off and tasted nothing. The thrill was in the void, dancing the line of losing his very self to the universe, the innate power that was space, time, gravity, the elemental forces that governed all but him because he was part of those forces that were governing.

The universe on his tongue, behind his eyes, and all he tasted was infinite darkness, all he saw was the infinite traces of stars, living and dead and being born and dying as the the universe expanded infinitely, as even infinity itself expanded infinitely, distance so vast his skull didn’t matter, his skull just part of that infinity, his mind and body and power just part of that infinity. Nobody could ever even hope to beat him unless they attacked infinity itself, the very world, the very universe, the very past and present and future all at once.

Sukuna was such a monster that he could attack infinity itself, the very world, the very universe, the very past and present and future all at once, and render Satoru small and human.

Ah, the sky looked completely different with the blinding light of the sun cutting out the infinite dark universe of stars.

Chapter 4: Mahito & Yuji: Number Nine

Notes:

wine was a (different) red blend, song was Aviators - Number Nine

 

this one is the most 'song fic' one yet in that i quote a fair amount from the song lyrics, couldn't really do this one without doing so, but still pretty happy with it since i haven't rlly explored the relation/dynamic between them before

---

Like a cat with nine lives, always managing to survive—for a time.

Mahito had thought it about Yuji, each time Yuji stood up from what should have been his death; Yuji thought it about Mahito each time Mahito got away, running.

Once, twice, thrice—keep standing up, keep running, because I’ll get you by number nine.

They each had only one purpose: to kill people, for no reason other than to kill them; to save people, for no reason other than to save them.

One purpose didn’t always cut it.

Thoughtless, they were both thoughtless—the black mamba and the mongoose, it could go either way. The both of them predator, and the both of them prey.

A tango of two to the grave that only one of them will fall in, and they won’t land on their feet this time.

They were each a bounty to the other that was far too prized—Yuji the one human whose soul Mahito could not transfigure, the one who Mahito most needed to succeed in order to grow; Mahito the worst curse to exist, the one that most needed to be exorcised and die.

Three chances, that’s all I’ll give you—they both thought it, thought Only three and no more—Four, what four? There could be no four!

But three would become a trilogy of three, so they were both remembering number nine You won’t get out of your fate another time.

Five seconds and your confidence is frozen—

Five seconds and you’ve left yourself wide open—

They were thinking in tandem, a dance of I step forward and you step back, you step back and I step forward—six steps and you’re already gone, but seven steps and I will leave you broken; eight when I snuff out your song.

And then there was only number nine.

But I am you, and you are me—they’d only had nine lives between the two of them. And the odd number was not split evenly.

So much bravado for a lie. Mahito thought it, as Itadori Yuji was being so high and might about humans’ lives. Life was all bark but death was the bite, the final snap of jaws when the teeth finally closed; death was a mirror to humans, a reverse reflection, and Mahito was that mirror. Every hero has to die. The values that he has to save people from death—death always comes. What’s the difference when? Such an utterly futile task! Every life brought into the world was owed to the underworld in signed deal.

Death was a mirror to humans, and Mahito was that mirror—so what were humans to death? Only the material that gave the reflective glass a face with eyes to see. They were nothing more.

I think your indifference is a crime. Yuji though it, as Mahito toyed with humans’ souls like they were putty, threw them away like junk, and Yuji had known that he like Mahito was absolute: all lives had to be worth the same, because if they weren’t, then how could he say whose lives were worth more than others’? Did that not then bring it into subjectivity, which would mean that objectively no lives were actually worth anything at all? What would that mean, then, for the lives of those he cared about? Their lives had to have meaning—therefore, all lives had to have meaning. So Mahito, who treated them like nothing at all, could not continue to exist. You’ve wasted all of your lives.

Now there was only number nine.

No wish can save you when the wolf stalks.

They both thought it, there in Shibuya gunning for each other’s throats, Mahito with a body that could be killed over and over again so long as his soul was fine, Yuji with a soul that could be killed over and over again so long as his body was fine. I am you and you are me—mirror reflections of the other, everything reversed.

Mahito had thought that he was the hunter, but at the end there he was, the rabbit, running, on the wrong side of the reflection.

I knew I’d seen that face before—

They both thought it, Yuji looking down at Mahito indifferently while Mahito looked up at Yuji in horror, just like, at the beginning, Mahito had looked down at Yuji indifferently while Yuji had looked up at Mahito in horror.

They were seeing the reflections of their own faces, now. Mahito the horror at indifference, Yuji the indifference at horror.

I am you and you are me—

Yuji hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it, then.

Mahito didn’t want to acknowledge it, now.

Who here is evil and who here is good?

Killing, exorcising; the same act, just upon different beings. A killer of humans and an exorcist of curses; an exorcist of humans and a killer of curses. That was all that they were.

Which view was right and which view was wrong just depended on which side of the mirror you were standing on.

Nine lives, like a cat, split between them—the number odd, because the one constant in life and death was that life was never equal and fair while death always was.

Chapter 5: Suguru & Satoru: Umbrella

Notes:

wine was a cabernet sauvignon, song was MONKID x NOT U - Umbrella

 

had to take this one a more melancholy route haha

---

“This sucks,” said Suguru.

It was raining. Raining hard. His clothes, his hair—he was going to get soaked through. He stood underneath the awning and gave the weather a criminally offensive side-eye.

But there wasn’t anything he could do. Cursed spirits had to be exorcised, even in the rain.

Satoru took one look at him, and then went back inside the store. Through the window, Suguru watched him take off his dark glasses and then talk to the cashier, and then the young woman left and then a minute later came back with an umbrella which she handed to Satoru, who smiled cheerfully and waved before exiting the store, handing the umbrella to Suguru.

“Here, she gave it to me for free,” Satoru said, placing his dark round glasses back on, looking around the edges of them with rain-bright blue eyes.

The umbrella was translucent with pink sakura.

“I’m not going to share—”

“We’re not going to share,” Satoru said, still looking at him, thick white eyelashes feathering when he blinked. He blinked less than normal people. “It’s yours.”

“But then you—”

Satoru stepped out from under the awning, giving a shit-eating grin as he spread his arms. The rain pouring down, and not a drop hitting him, bouncing off of his Infinity.

“Asshole,” Suguru muttered.

“It’s use that umbrella or get soaking wet.”

Suguru sighed, opened the translucent umbrella decorate with pink sakura, raised it above his head, and stepped out into the rain, the drops drumming insistently on the plastic: Let me in; let me in; let me in.

Staring at Satoru walking ahead of him, Suguru had the same thought, because he would’ve grabbed Satoru’s hand and pulled him under the umbrella with him, if only Satoru’s Infinity weren’t keeping him as distant as the rain.

Chapter 6: Naoya & Toji: In The Darkness

Notes:

wine was a (different) cabernet sauvignon, song was Barren Gates - In The Darkness

 

pretty happy to end up with this song, it's one of my all-time favs

rather unsuprisingly, these characters are also my favs

i don't understand how anyone who loves Toji could hate Naoya when Naoya's Toji's #1 and kind of literally only fan... *forgives Naoya for everything just bc he saw Toji's strength while no one else did lmao*

---

In the darkness of night, in the ruins of lost dreams, Naoya could still see his face. Lupine, with a scar through the corner of his mouth and no light in his eyes, only shadows.

And like a shadow, Naoya had followed him, back then, like he was a compass and North was Toji, always Toji.

“Why the hell are you always following me?”

“Because I want to stand by your side one day.”

“By the side of a failure?”

“By the side of the strongest.”

Dreams lost. The world was heartless.

“The fuck is wrong with you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me. What’s wrong is everyone else. For not acknowledging you. Not seeing you.”

Naoya would never forget that day Toji was thrown in the curse pit. The day he ripped them all apart with his bare hands, roared with spine-chilling elemental fury as harrowing as a wolf’s fathomless haunting howl, and broke down the heavy locked metal door like it was a flimsy thing, oozing darkness like blood, from his lightless eyes and his every pore, but his only injury was that slice through his lips.

Naoya would never forget the way the others quaked and trembled and cowered away, noting it distantly around him while he could only stare, feeling the powerful sublimity like a weight in the air, a warping and bending of the world to a gravity so great it was incomprehensible, like the emergence of a god, the rise of a deep red sun out of the darkness of the infinite starry night that it tore to shreds with the intrinsic power of its very being and rendered meaningless.

Toji was poetry, was violence and power and beauty, was deep and unseen like a shadow in the darkness, a light in the sun, seemed less exactly because he was so much more that he disappeared into the world he so far surpassed.

Naoya still remembered how Toji looked in the dark, standing over him because Naoya had snuck into his room. Only then had there been a light in Toji’s eyes, reflected on his cornea by the moonlight through the opened window.

“You afraid of the dark or something?”

“What’s there to be scared of in the darkness of this world when you’re the strongest thing in it and you haven’t killed me? That goes for in the light, too.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I want to be beside you.”

Lost dreams Naoya was trailing in the wake of, because Toji had left and Satoru had killed him but Toji was still the North of Naoya’s compass, and so he followed Toji still, shadowing a ghost that was so much more than the world that it rendered everyone and everything else meaningless.

It was inevitable that he would be the one to stand by Toji’s side.

After all, he was the one who followed after Toji, even in the darkness.

(Even in death.)

Notes:

*privately not able to get over the fact that Toji and Naoya were both killed and then brought back bc who else did that happen to except the Yuji the mc and well maybe also Geto if you count Kenjaku as him being brought back idk if that counts (if i forgot someone feel free to correct me lol cuz otherwise i'm gonna be stuck on both Toji and Naoya being special in jjk)*

Chapter 7: Kenjaku: ETERNITY

Notes:

hi i'm here with more of my jjk obsession, synesthesia, and shitty music taste (according to my irls)

 

wine was a shiraz, song was Code: Pandorum - "ETERNITY"

---

Centuries gone by, and hundreds of lives, a few had made sorcerer history, Kamo Noritoshi especially, but most of those lives he’d lived were of nobodies, sometimes sorcerers and sometimes monkeys. Because he just wanted to know. What else there was in the world. What existed beyond sorcerers and curses. It was all so dull; there had to be something more.

Centuries of idle plans he could never enact, because the pieces that he needed, the pieces that he wanted, did not exist. Oh, they must surely eventually exist, there was no way that they wouldn’t come into existence in this world. But they didn’t exist as soon as he wanted them to, so all he could do was wait.

The first piece was Zen’in Toji. Not because of his lack of cursed energy—or maybe it was, maybe it was exactly Zen’in Toji’s anomaly that had caused everything, incited the birth of the Six Eyes and everything after—because it was when he successfully defeated the invincible Gojo Satoru and assassinated the Star Plasma Vessel, causing Tengen to be unable to merge and to evolve into a Higher Being that was one with his barriers, it was that which set the ball rolling, set everything in motion. And all because of Zen’in Toji and his complete Heavenly Restriction.

Zen’in Toji. I’ve been waiting an eternity for you.

And how perfect it was, because at that time, too, there was the Curse Manipulator, Geto Suguru. Who then defected, became a sorcerer terrorist with the very silly ideal of killing all non-sorcerers, and got himself killed by Gojo Satoru. And then Gojo Satoru didn’t even have Ieiri Shoko take care of his best friend’s body after death. How perfect it was, that Kenjaku was able to get access to that body, that ability. Curse Manipulation.

Geto Suguru. I’ve been waiting an eternity for you.

And then there was Itadori Yuji, Kenjaku’s own son, born from him when he inhabited the body of Itadori Kaori, a non-sorcerer born sorcerer who had such an interesting ability, Kenjaku couldn’t help but kill her and take her body to breed her and him together with her husband. And what an interesting individual Itadori Yuji turned out to be, with the ability to be Ryomen Sukuna’s vessel without being fully taken over. And so the King of Curses was able to exist in the world once again. Kenjaku was beyond giddy.

Ryomen Sukuna. I’ve been waiting an eternity for you.

And then, wonder upon wonders, the most anomalous anomaly that Kenjaku had yet seen: Mahito, the most human of curses, with such a perfect ability, that of manipulating souls. To manipulate cursed spirits, and also manipulate humans’ souls—what wouldn’t Kenjaku be able to do? Once he absorbed Mahito, he would have everything he needed to achieve his greatest desire.

Mahito. I’ve been waiting an eternity for you.

It also certainly didn’t hurt that Mahito was fun, always eager to participate in Kenjaku’s games. Kenjaku hadn’t had such a companion for as long as he could remember. After he absorbed Mahito, he almost regretted it, just a little tiny bit. Losing such an interesting individual as that. But Kenjaku’s plan was of greater import and significance, of greater interest to him.

Choso, the first of the Cursed Wombs he had caused to be born as Kamo Noritoshi, turned out to be not that interesting, although at least a little useful. It was at least interesting to see how he’d developed, despite also being disappointing that he hadn’t been more.

Maybe Kenjaku missed Mahito a little bit, his eager personality and willingness to go along with any game or scheme, but it didn’t matter. Everyone would be merging with Tengen anyway. That was what he’d done all of this for. What he’d waited all this eternity for. He just so badly wanted to see what would happen when he brought his plan to fruition in the world.

Maybe he missed Mahito a little bit, and maybe that Takaba Fumihiko reminded him a little bit of Mahito, was just a little bit less and a little bit more, just as eager to play but with more desperate ideas, even more pathetic but just as pitiable, less ignorance but more pain, and Kenjaku enjoyed it, like he’d enjoyed playing with Mahito, but even more because—

Because he’d been missing Mahito, maybe. Or maybe because Takaba Fumihiko was so very human while Mahito hadn’t been and so had always been missing something. Missing something ever so similar to what Kenjaku was missing, but even more, while Takaba Fumihiko had exactly that which he lacked, and so it had been fun to play with him like that, even more fun than playing with Mahito. Because no matter how human Mahito was, he was never actually human and was always simply a cursed spirit, while no matter how much of a sorcerer Takaba Fumihiko was, he was always still simply a human. And Kenjaku, despite everything, was human, too.

He’d wanted to see everyone merged with Tengen, his greatest ambition come to fruition in the world. But he found himself strangely satisfied, dying after getting to play with that comedian.

In the very last moments before he died, he wondered idly if all that he’d really wanted, for all these centuries, was just a companion that he could play with on the same level.

Ah well. He was dying, finally, so it didn’t matter, anymore.

Takaba Fumihiko. I’ve been waiting an eternity for you.

The greatest difference with Takaba Fumihiko was that he’d been waiting all of his existence for Kenjaku, too.

Just a companion that he could play with on the same level.

Notes:

chapter written/posted 2024-04-19

chapter note 2024-04-21: manga just revealed the reason for Kenjaku having Yuji, damn, just missed that reveal *too lazy to edit the drabble with the new info*

Chapter 8: Mei Mei & Satoru: Just a Little Bit

Summary:

Mei Mei's horny, Gojo's horny, Mei Mei likes money and Gojo has a lot of it. no porn, just seduction/business transaction. and Mei Mei's unique philosophy/worldview

Notes:

wine was a rosé of pinot noir, song was Kids of 88 - "Just a Little Bit"

usually wines will remind me of a song i've heard recently, but sometimes a wine will get a song stuck in my head that i haven't heard in years and have absolutely no idea how i know. like this time. i sipped the wine and almost immediately the "just a little bit / is what you need" got stuck in my head, and then i had to look up the lyric to find what the song actually was bc i had no idea

bit of a difficult song for jjk lol, took me a bit to think who it could possibly fit. ended up with a Mei Mei & Gojo friends with benefits idea (didn't add the Mei Mei/Gojo ship tag cuz in my mind it's not an actual pairing here. and there's no actual porn)

this one's longer than usual bc for the others i only drank one or two glasses at most, this time i drank the entire fucking bottle. been having sleep issues, super sleep-deprived but couldn't fall asleep, was gonna use the wine to help, didn't think i'd finish the bottle tho thought i was sleep-deprived enuf i'd pass out before then. but noooo, apparently my brain hates me

so yeah, i got extra drunk on this one, i don't even remember writing the second half of this piece lol. at that level of drunkenness my writing gets kinda heavy-handed... but these drabbles are just a game and i do still like this just as an explorative character/relationship study

---

In Mei Mei’s opinion, other sorcerers were much too stressed and high-strung. They should ease up, indulge in a bit of hedonism. Life was short and ultimately meaningless. There was no need to be so serious about any of it. Life was for pleasure. And pleasure came from money. With money, you could do anything, have anything. The entire world opened up to you. Every other kind of pleasure that there was. It could all be bought with money.

Everything except for ‘love’, which was a concept she truly didn’t understand. Why chain yourself to someone and make yourself dependent on them in that way? Money was pleasure, and it was also independence; ‘love’ was making a prisoner and slave of yourself. She didn’t understand people who were into the ‘love’ thing at all. Loving someone was being subservient to their whims, like Ui Ui was to her. A lot of people hated her though. She didn’t care. She didn’t understand why so many people wanted to be subservient to others in that way. She could understand why people would want others to be subservient to them. She figured that was why people hated her. They hated that she was so strong that she didn’t need anybody at all and so would never be subservient to anyone. She didn’t need them and would never be subservient to them. They hated that. How cute. Humans were foolish beings.

‘Love’ was all about power, controlling others and being controlled. Money was pleasure and money was freedom, powder independent of anybody else.

Others could run around in circles. She knew only ascension and soaring.

Gojo Satoru was like that too, she thought. Or at least, he was the closest. He still put so much pressure on himself, though. Well, he was the Six Eyes. People had always put pressure on him. She thought he should loosen up a bit, though. Relax, indulge in the things he desired but denied himself. She felt such pity, seeing him working his fingers to the bone.

She didn’t feel love. But did she feel lust? Yes, of course she did. Just not enough to give her body away for free. But certainly enough to sell her body for that pleasure. Sexual satisfaction and monetary satisfaction all at once. Who said being a whore was demeaning? Giving your body to others for free was demeaning. Being a whore, giving yourself to others for money, was power. They got nothing but sex; you got sex and money. You got everything.

She wouldn't proposition anyone like Geto who was an idealist or Nanami who was as serious as death—life was for egoism and frivolity—but Gojo, who was a hairsbreadth away from a god complex and psychosis? She’d proposition him. He was the closest to knowing that the purpose of life was self-indulgence—or rather, he did know, just because of his power, he couldn’t allow himself to live in such a way. He was always wrapping himself in others’ chains because he had none of his own, and chainless he had the power to destroy an entire country without breaking a sweat. It really was a lot, being the Six Eyes. And so many people failed to realize that.

What Mei Mei cared about most was that she was horny, Gojo was hot and he had money. And he was assuredly desperate and repressed, because who would let him fuck them? Nobody was strong enough to take him. But Mei Mei knew that she could.

“You’ve got pressure dripping off your shoulders.” She’d sidled up to him, was letting her fingers run over said shoulders. “Let me be the one to relieve it.”

Gojo looked at her aslant. “You want my money.”

“Of course I do,” Mei Mei smiled, purring, coquettish. “It’s not like it’s going to hurt you. You have a lot of it. And I think you could really use the stress-relief. And, you know, since it’s you, I’ll give you a deal. Charge you less than I would anyone else.” She reached up to ruffle his white tresses flirtatiously. “You look so good when your hair’s a mess.”

“My hair’s always a mess,” Gojo said, looking at her with that blank stare of his. The one where he knew what you were doing and was looking right through you even as he was indulging you.

“Yeah, so you always look good,” she purred at him, pressing herself closer, lowering her voice, sultry: “Let’s get unprofessional. It’s mutually beneficial. Nothing wrong with it. I’ll give you a little bit of what you need, and you give me a little bit of what I want.” She rubbed herself lightly against him in all the right ways. “How does that sound?”

Gojo just continued to give her that stare. It was hot, the blankness and intensity of his vivid blue eyes. “How much do you want?”

“From you?” Mei Mei smiled. “I’ll only ask for—” She whispered it in his ear. It was a lot. Because she knew she could get away with it.

“‘Only’ ask for, you say,” Gojo said dryly, looking at her, knowing.

“Have you seen this body?” Mei Mei cocked her hip, pushed up one of her breasts, tilted her head, her other hand still on Gojo’s shoulder. “You should feel yourself privileged. From anyone else, I’d ask for double that price.” It was more or less true. When it came to selling your body for money, it was all about what you got for what you were given: someone repulsive, if they paid her a titillating amount, she’d let them fuck her, because the payment outweighed the rest; for someone hot that she rather liked, like Gojo, she didn’t need as much monetary incentive due to knowing how the sexual pleasure would be so great, plus to encourage repeat payments it was important to make it seem almost cheap, for what she wanted to be given again, she’d get both more payment and more pleasure that way, meanwhile when someone was repulsive it was usually a one-time thing that she did simply because of the ridiculous pay, and the ridiculously pay partly to dissuade future propositions. It was all about the levels of rewards for what was being either asked for or given.

Gojo just snorted. “At that rate, nobody else could even afford you.”

“Why do you think I’m asking you and not anyone else?” Mei Mei said, pressing closer against him, arms around his shoulders, leaning in to breath against his neck. “Besides… if you don’t pay to fuck me, do you really think you’ll be getting to fuck anyone else for free? You can buy cheaper whores than me; but they won’t be anywhere near so good for you as I can be.”

“Fine.” Gojo hummed in her ear, sensual. “You’ve successfully seduced me.” Lowering his voice further, almost husky: “Where do you want to do this?”

Mei Mei was already feeling the tingles. “Your place, my place, or you can pay for a hotel. I don’t really care… but if you pay for the hotel as well as pay my fee, I’ll let you have me for the entire night.” She murmured it in his ear: “You can fuck me as much as you want during that time.”

She could feel the way Gojo shivered. “Well, isn’t that some incentive,” he drawled it, in just the right way to turn her on. “Fine then.”

Pressing close, he almost kissed her. She put her finger to his lips before he could. Smiled at him kittenishly. “No kisses until you pay. After you pay, you can kiss me as much as you want for the next sixteen hours.” 16:00 to 08:00. For the amount that she’d asked for, she’d give that much to Gojo, given the way he was.

“Damn,” Gojo said, pulling her close against him and his half-hard cock, murmuring erotically: “now your price sounds like a deal.”

“You can always pay me more,” she hummed, pressing back against him.

It felt good.

She was almost disappointed when he pulled away to take out his phone, tapping across the screen. A few minutes later, he showed her the transaction.

“Here. The price you asked for.” He smirked devilishly. “But I’ll be nice in how I treat you.”

“You don’t have to be,” Mei Mei said, pressing back against him. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer, body heat against hers.

“But if I’m not, I’d feel obliged to pay far more than I want to pay,” he murmured hot and humidly in hear ear.

She shivered from the turn-on. “So stingy,” she teased him. Shaking a little, but in a really nice way.

She really did like him, despite not loving him. Love was incarceration; liking was just indulgence.

“If at any point you want me to fuck you harder than I am, you can pay me.” She could hear the smirk in his voice as he purred in her hear. “Then I’ll do it. But otherwise, I’m not giving you all of me. You only get a fraction of it.” It was almost a threat.

It was a definite turn-on. Mei Mei laughed slightly as she rolled her hips a little against him, feeling him shiver. What a nice feeling. “You’re so backwards, you know.” She kissed his neck, rolled her hips against his half-hard dick. “Since you’re paying me to give myself to you, you should be taking everything out on me.”

Gojo accepted her physical advances but huffed in her ear: “But then you’d raise your price for next time.”

Oh, that did things to Mei Mei. That awareness and understanding he had of her. “I love that about you,” she murmured against his neck, kissing lightly. Shivering lightly. “I don’t love you, but I love that about you.”

“I don’t love you, either,” Gojo told her, rolling his hardened cock against her and crooning in her ear: “But you’re fucking hot, and goddamn convincing.”

Mei Mei was feeling really turned on by that point. Gojo’s money was already in her bank account; now she just wanted her dick in him. But with a condom and lube, of course. But she knew Gojo felt the same about that. He didn’t want to impregnate her any more than she wanted to be impregnated by him; they just both wanted stress relief and pleasure.

“Then let’s take this somewhere where anybody who hears us scream won’t know who we are,” she told him, kissing his face, his jaw. Since he’d paid already, and such a large sum, she could let herself go, now. Be that absolute whore that she’d be for that amount of money, and from such a hot person.

“Sounds like a good idea. You’d better not regret it, Mei Mei-chan…”

Gojo was a hot fuck. And she liked that Gojo had no problems paying to fuck her.

The others were so idealistic, it was repulsive. Why did sex have to have anything to do with love? Pleasure was pleasure, and money was money. Love was just people’s excuses for abuse. She’d rather be a whore selling herself for her own power than a slave degrading herself for nothing.

Nobody would want Gojo to fuck them, given his strength. They were idiots. It was exactly because of his god-level strength that Gojo had such phenomenal self-control; it was exactly because of his isolation from others that he had so much consideration for how he treated others.

Gojo was a good bedroom partner. And he had a lot of money.

Mei Mei truly didn’t understand people. But she didn’t care. They could all be foolish; she’d reap all the benefit from their foolishness. They could all be slaves and masters, she’d be the queen.

Gojo was somewhere between a prince and a monster, and it was hot. She orgasmed hard, several times. She got paid well. At the end, they both knew they’d be doing it again. Gojo had stress to relieve and money to spend; Mei Mei had horniness to indulge and greed to satisfy.

Mei Mei liked that Gojo would pay for her, fuck her, and treat her nice.

She didn’t love Gojo. But she did like and respect him. Which was more than could be said of her opinion of most.

‘Friends with benefits’ Gojo called them. Mei Mei thought that that fit them well.

Benefits like money, pleasure, freedom.

Notes:

Mei Mei's actually my fav female character in jjk. so ofc, she's widely hated by fans. just like my fav male characters (looking at you Naoya and Mahito). what can i say, i like them when their heads are skewed... it makes them fascinating to me, like delightful psychological puzzles. very distinctive ways of looking at the world, all of them. warped, yes. but unique and therefore interesting and fun to write.

lol 16h is a long time. my drunk brain was having underlying thoughts that it didn't end up writing, which was that she chose such a long time period exactly so that it wouldn't just be fucking, and would actually just be a lot of hanging out and relaxing. chatting, getting food, making fun of their peers, sleeping, just chillin' and doing nothing. maybe hit a hot a hot spring. and then also fucking amid the rest. but the "you can fuck me as much as you want during that time" was basically with the intention that they could fuck, go do something else, come back, fuck again, do something else, fuck again. that kinda scenario. so she basically got Gojo to pay her to take a mini relaxation vacation with him haha. he wouldn't have taken the break by himself. and then she gets one too and gets him to pay for it. everyone's a winner.

Chapter 9: Naoya & Toji, Toji & Naoya: Eye Of The Tiger

Notes:

wine was a pinot noir, song was "Tommee Profitt, FJØRA - Eye Of The Tiger"

short chapter, but definitely check out the song, this one's legit fucking epic

and yes i love these two. don't sue bc i have no money. go ahead and fight me tho

---

Prowling unseen, rippling muscle in shadows, footfalls silent, Toji watched them all with the eye of the tiger.

Naoya wanted to be closer, pet that fur, trace those claws, feel in heat of flesh against his skin that breath-taking and heart-gripping awe of this beautiful powerful creature that so serenely disdained to destroy them.

Toji could shake the sky to the ground, shiver the world to ashes. Naoya loved the rush in his blood of latent violent futures unrealized. This being that could rip out his neck, and yet let him crawl into his bed and curl against him, fall asleep in the safest place in the world: in the embrace of the tiger full of danger but absent of hunger.

---

Toji, returning from a job, smelled of steel and gunpowder and blood.

The work was fun, the money was good. His life was good, the women were fun.

He walked unseen whether along quiet streets or amid crowds, his footfalls silent and his presence none, a drifting ghost with a body of power and skill he simply hardly had the passion to use. Only for glory, and the only glory for the unseen was money. There could be no fame. He took his chances, went the distance, kept his grip. A will to survive, but little more. There was little to want in a world that couldn’t see him. He preyed where it benefited him, and otherwise just lived. That was enough and all he needed. He didn’t want for anything more.

Sometimes he just missed that bright gold gaze, all passion and hunger, watching him with the eyes of a tiger.

That kid was all death-or-glory, overtaken by passion. It was hard to care for such a creature, that, like a man-eating tiger, had too much desire and too little fear, too much daring and too little survival instinct.

Toji played it safe. Naoya had played it hard. Sometimes he’d just wanted to kill the little fuck just so that nothing else did.

Eventually, though, he’d left to get away from that eye of the tiger. An eye that could see him, and so gold and so hungry.

Who wanted to be watched by the eye of a tiger? It was so much easier just to go unseen.

Toji didn’t want for anything more than he had in his life. It was just that sometimes, briefly, he missed that dangerous thing of being actually fully seen.

Woe to he who’d been watched with the eye of the tiger.

After such a gaze, no other would be the same.

---

Toji left, and it ripped a hole in Naoya’s life. There would never be anyone else like Toji. For as long as Naoya lived, he would never have anyone else like Toji. And compared to Toji, everyone else was nothing. Without Toji, there wasn’t anything noteworthy in the world. Maybe Satoru—maybe. But he still wasn’t the same. Satoru was the deadliest thing in the world, like was the mosquito.

Satoru was there as a deadly menace, but a more irritating buzzy one, and Naoya missed being watched with eye of the tiger.

After such a gaze, no other would be the same.

Chapter 10: Suguru: New Strings

Notes:

wine was a dark tanniny red blend, like if shadows were sand on the tongue, song was Istasha - New Strings - and this song has a jjk amv! :)) def check it out!
srsly love this dude's music, it's so gritty, and the lyrics make no sense, it's glorious

This chapter comes with a #Geto Suguru is His Own Warning
i still don't understand why that isn't an actual tag, this bro is so screwed up

so yeah, be warned!! there is no mental health here, absolutely nada...

---

Suguru knew that what he was doing was a kind of suicide. Killing who he was in the past and killing who he would have been in the future.

New strings, new ties, the noose swung, his old self hung.

He just wanted to have a good day, be okay. The dark clouds in his mind had taken all the fun away.

Oh yeah, all those monkeys wanted to live, but he really wished they were dead. Wanted them out of his view when he walked through, no longer in his sight as a blight, no longer on his tongue like rags saturated with puke and dung.

Satoru at the edge of the walkway, Suguru was okay but he knew that eventually he was a goner.

Suguru just wanted to be someone new, no longer boxed into that role of the strong protect the weak. Fuck that, he was out.

A handful of sorcerers who were important to him, that was all he needed. Fuck the rest, they could choke on their own filth.

Again and again he saw Amane Riko take a bullet to the head, watched that monkey saunter in with that nonchalant grin.

Suguru was so done with all that. Ingesting toxicity for no thanks, killing himself in his mind again and again just to make it all end.

Satoru’s best friend was long dead before Satoru killed him. “You were my one and only best friend”—motherfucker, get your head checked. Suguru had new strings, new ties, new friends, new hair, new clothes, new joys, new woes. Satoru didn’t know him at all.

“At least curse me before my end.” It wasn’t Satoru who had killed his one and only best friend, it was Suguru himself.

He’d been so tired of beating himself black and blue for the very people who birthed the curses that hurt him, forced past his gag complex, filled him, exhausted him. So he put himself in the grass, resting at long last, could smack new chops and lick new fingers, swallow with a new throat no longer raw.

He didn’t like who he used to be in the past, always listening to what other people said as if it was right. They didn’t even know what he was taking down his throat, how it felt and tasted and what it left of him.

Maybe it was indicative that for his new clothes, he donned those of a Buddhist priest. He was tired of the suffering. All he wanted was for it to end in nirvana.

Suguru had thrown away his life so many times. Satoru was just the same as always. Did he ziploc his soul or something like that? How could he go all these years in this world and still be the same, not having changed?

Ah, that’s right, Satoru was immortal. Nothing could touch him, not with his Limitless, his Six Eyes, his Infinity, like some kind of biblically accurate angel. Power over space itself, and Suguru was just swallowing piece after piece of monkey’s bloody putrid stomach acid and shit.

All Suguru had wanted was to have a good day, actually be okay. That was why he’d offed himself.

Satoru and all the rest would never understand that.

Notes:

buddhism references, christianity references, yeah Suguru is religiously confused...

the biblically accurate angel thing tho is such a funny meme, so many eyes. and wings. or else rings. and but eyes. serious Prison Realm vibes

Chapter 11: Satoru: Spooky Scary Skeletons

Notes:

yeah i have absolutely no idea what this red wine is, but within a few sips Andrew Gold - Spooky Scary Skeletons (Undead Tombstone Remix) got stuck in my head, man i swear it's been years since i listened to that song

in any case i was kinda delighted bc haha it's so perfect for Satoru in the Prison Realm

---

So, Satoru was trapped in the Prison Realm with a bunch of spooky scary skeletons.

Just kidding. They weren’t that spooky or scary. They were just skeletons. They clattered their bones and screamed and shrieked in silence. But that was all they did.

It was nice to have the company, honestly. Better than being there in emptiness, alone. But it did beg the question of what the skeletons were doing there. People who had died in the Prison Realm before? Couldn’t be, there were far too many. So what were they and why were they there?

It made Satoru wonder if the inside of the Prison Realm was the same for everyone, or if its atmosphere depended on the soul of the individual being contained. In that case, all of the skeletons would be there simply because he was him.

It didn’t really make sense. Satoru hadn’t killed that many people. But Suguru probably had. So did these skeletons represent all the people who had died because Satoru had failed to kill Suguru that day in the crowded street in front of the KFC? Or even all the people who had died because Satoru had failed to see that Suguru wasn’t doing well and was headed for darkness?

Well, it was one theory. But Satoru couldn’t really come up with any others. It didn’t really make sense to fill the Prison Realm with skeletons on purpose. What, were skeletons supposed to be that scary? Because they really weren’t. He had a skeleton inside him, too. Everybody did. Skeletons really were misunderstood, just like the deepest parts of everyone were.

But if all the skeletons were there because of his guilt, all those lives weighing on him because he couldn’t kill his best friend? Well, that was pretty spooky. That the prison of his mind in which time didn’t pass looked like this.

A shame that he’d never get to talk to anyone who had been incarcerated in the Prison Realm. He really was interested in if they were also surrounded by spooky scary skeletons or if their prisons had been based off their own minds and demons.

Satoru didn’t even think it really made sense for this to be the prison of his mind. Maybe just because he’d seen that body-stealing sorcerer in Suguru’s body right before being pulled in. Maybe the Prison Realm had processed not the demons of his entire life, but his demons of just that moment when he was pulled in. That probably did make more sense.

So if the body-stealing sorcerer had been in Toji’s body instead of Suguru’s, what would Satoru’s prison look like then?

Satoru would never know. And these were all just theories, anyway. But there wasn’t much else to do.

Just theorize and speculate, while listening to the music of clattering and skeletons trying to socialize with him with their silent shrieking and screaming.

Sometimes, it did make him shudder.

Chapter 12: Miwa, Miwa & Mechamaru: Wings

Notes:

wine was a very cheap pinot noir, the song the popped into my mind for whatever atmospheric reason was Little Mix - Wings which is yet another song that i swear i haven't heard in years and have no idea how i know, but there it is. and originally i was not happy about it, bc i wanted to write something angsty but nooooo, the cheap red wine just had to map to a song that by past associations i would have sworn should map to a full-bodied white or a semi-sweet rosé. sometimes either the world or my brain likes to throw me curve balls i guess.

in whatever case, once i realized that it worked for Miwa Kasumi, i forgave either the world or my brain, because this is something i would never have written otherwise, and that's kind of the entire point of this writing game/writing exercise

and then of course Mechamaru got included as well, because how could he not. is it just my shitty memory or are they really kind of the only canon jjk pairing? they're cute. tragic what happened. the fight between Kokichi and Mahito was boss tho. they were both so great in it. which i could say the current battle against Sukuna were as good. but alas, imho it is not. i'm so frustrated/disappointed i could do that scream-into-a-pillow thing. if i knew how to actually scream and not just shout and curse. (for posterity's sake, in case anything in the manga still coming out changes my opinion from this point, this chapter is posted 2024-05-12, approximately, depending on the time zone.)

ok, i'm done rambling. i hope you enjoy the chapter ʚїɞ

---

Kasumi’s mother, smiling with soft eyes, had told her “Don’t waste your life. Spread your wings, my little butterfly.”

Her mother wasn’t there anymore, but Kasumi had her two little brothers to support. Considering her meager skills in all things, and the job opportunities available to her, being a sorcerer made by far the most money. So a sorcerer she became, since she could see curses and use cursed energy, so at least it was something that she could do.

She heard what everyone said. ‘Miwa, the useless one.’ She knew she was completely useless, but she was next to useless. Still, she wasn’t going to let that stop her. They could say whatever they wanted, but she was still going to be a sorcerer, she was still going to exorcise every curse she could, she was still going to get that money and support her younger brothers. They were smarter than her, and she wanted to get them into high school at least—a regular high school, not Jujutsu High—and maybe even college, if she could. She just needed to support them at least until they were able to support themselves and have the successful and normal lives that they deserved.

She felt bad that she was useless and worried that her weakness caused trouble for others trying to protect her. But she wasn’t going to let that keep her up at night. She had to just let their words roll like water off her wings, because she had her little brothers to think of and her mother had told her not to waste her life, and Mechamaru told her that she wasn’t useless and he was glad she was on the team. And on top of that, Gojo Satoru had even let her take selfies with him. Gojo Satoru, the strongest and hottest and coolest sorcer, had let her take selfies with him. How could she give up being a sorcerer?

So no matter what people said, and now matter how bad she felt, she wasn’t going to let it bring her down. She was just going to to keep trying, even if she fell from the sky, because what were wings for if not to fly? Even if you failed, you had to at the very least try.

So she said, “Hello, I’m Miwa, the useless one,” but told herself she was too fly to care.

She’d get there someday. Someday, she’d become a respectable sorcerer, and nobody would call her useless anymore, because she really wouldn’t be. Why should she give up because of being useless now when future her would be less useless? Giving up would just make her even more useless than she already was. And she wasn’t going to be that.

Even just a teeny tiny bit of improvement every day. The teeny tiniest bit. Like a scale on a butterfly wing. They didn’t look like much, but once you’d gathered enough, they’d created those beautiful wings. Eventually, she’d be able to spread them much more proudly.

“You’ll definitely get there,” Mechamaru told her. “You’ve already come so far. Keep it up, Kasumi-chan. You’re doing great. You brave your fears and you face your weaknesses. Not everyone can do that. You’re steadfast and caring. With that motivation, you can do anything.”

Sometimes Kasumi loved that boy so much she could cry. And yes, she did mean the boy behind the cursed puppet.

“You too, Mechamaru,” she told him. “Don’t listen to what they say, either. When they dismiss you for being a puppet. You’re so much more than that. You’re not just Mechamaru. You’re the sorcerer behind Mechamaru, and you’re all the Mechamarus. You’re so much more than any of them. So don’t listen to them, okay? Let’s both not let them bring us down. Okay?”

It was so cute, the way Mechamaru’s face didn’t emote but she could still hear the blush in that project voice. “Okay.”

At that moment, Kasumi really did feel like she could fly.

With Mechamaru by her side, she really did feel like she could do anything.

Chapter 13: Satoru: Shoot Me Down

Notes:

Haven't been doing all that great recently recently, so here i am tasting yet another wine, bc wine-tasting remains fun despite everything else in life

Wine was a Chardonnay, song was Diamond Pistols - Shoot Me Down (feat. Ian Everson), this Chardonnay was so full and light and sunny, it could really only apply to Satoru in his god mode

---

Throughout the Heavens and Earth, I alone am the Honored One.

Satoru had never felt so divine. Being brought face to face with his death, staring it in its gray eyes, feeling the reversed cursed energy form naturally beneath his skin, cursed energy not added to itself but multiplied against itself, blocking him from that infinite darkness, bringing him back beneath a sunflower sky, all gold when he rose up into it, sunlight illuming in his hair and lashes like he was a deity manifested—truly, how divine.

The man with zero cursed energy below him, shocked and then with that predatory grin, demonic eyes like an oni, proud even in his dishonor like a tengu, he didn’t have wings but he could nearly touch where Satoru was anyway, close to the sun.

That cursed tool that negated cursed techniques swinging over him, but all Satoru felt was peace. This world was such a beautiful one.

There will be no more shooting me down.

He wasn’t a being who belonged to the ground, not like that man with zero cursed energy below. Satoru belonged to the heavens. He only ever simply deigned to bestow the ground with his presence.

Everything was white and gold. The clouds, the sky, his hair, the sun. That man below all in black and gray, all shadow, and that purple curse caterpillar like an external wrapping of a bruise. What could they do?

Here, have some more purple— but maybe it was closer to the sun’s ultraviolet. A purple that shouldn’t exist, not to the human eye.

Void, emptiness, hollowness, unpreparedness, crack, fissure, untruth, imaginary.

That concept and existence which shattered worlds.

What was he but as close to a god as any being could come?

Not even that world-defying man below could shoot him down. Because you could defy the world, but could you defy the very universe? The very nothingness that made up everything?

That man was an embodiment of the world’s very nature. But Satoru was that even more.

That darkness could consume the light, but light would always devour the darkness once again. Light defied darkness even more than darkness defied light. So who was the world and who was its defiance?

Satoru just hadn’t realized that, with the darkness gone, he would crave for its touch once again, crave someone who could shoot him down from where he flew too close to the sun and everything was all blinding light and void, emptiness, hollowness, unpreparedness, crack, fissure, untruth, imaginary.

If that was as close as he got to heaven—was there anything to lament? He was as high as one could be without completely burning into nothing.

Ah, that darkness he’d gotten a taste of—? Only in retrospect did he realize how it had been so soothing.

So when Sukuna came to shoot him down, Satoru wasn’t worried.

The only outcomes were his divinity in life, or his tranquility in death. Both were a serenity.

Whether Satoru won or lost, he had his peace either way. So there was nothing to the fight except to enjoy the thrill. A thrill he hadn’t experienced since over ten years before, with the man with zero cursed energy.

Sukuna was so similar but so different. Another man who defied the world, but with his incredible cursed energy and his Open Domain.

What ultimately led to Sukuna’s victory, though, was Mahoraga, from Fushiguro once Zen’in Toji’s son. Maybe it was fate, maybe it was retribution.

Satoru didn’t really mind either way. He’d gotten to live, and he’d gotten to die. What more could a near-godly human ask for? He’d gotten to experience everything, including both the craving for more and the wish for it all to end. So what hadn’t he had?

He’d gotten both to fly as close to the sun as could be flown, and also to be shot down.

He’d lived in peace with himself, and he’d died in peace with himself.

He couldn’t have asked for anything more.

Notes:

I didn't understand why sometimes the translation was "Hollow Purple" and sometimes the translation was "Imaginary Purple" until I realized it must used the same kanji as for Usturo from Gintama, "Void", a kanji was has those multiple meanings, 虚

There was so much parallel drawn between Toji's death as Satoru's hand and Satoru's death at Sukuna-in-Megumi's-body's hand, Satoru having copied Toji's outfit from then as well

It was a really wonderful parallel. The particular panel/s of it almost made me cry or throw up or bang the walls or something. I just feel like it could have been done better.

Ah well, in whatever case. I hope you enjoyed this chapter :)

Chapter 14: Kenjaku & Mahito: Freak

Notes:

Wine was a barbera, the song it brought up was Sub Urban - Freak (Lyrics) feat. REI AMI

had a lot of fun with this one tho, the relationship between Kenjaku and Mahito fascinates me

as well as the way Mahito disturbs ppl, admittedly, bc i didn't understand it and it was something i had to have explained to me...

very interesting psychology stuff and i love all that shit

---

Kenjaku might be psychopathic, but Mahito was a freak. He was cruel like a child was cruel: he didn’t know any better. He looked at a situation, thought ‘What if I do this?’ and then he did it, just to see what would happen, and he didn’t care what the consequences were, it was all interesting to him. All his thoughts were odd, he was truly the least human out of the group of special-grade cursed spirits despite looking the most human.

Kenjaku himself was the only one who could control him to any degree, and it was only because, unlike Jogo and Hanami, he was actually intelligent enough to reason with Mahito on his level. Because Mahito was intelligent, he was just also very much a freak, a sick and incurable creature that really should be put down, but Kenjaku couldn’t help himself.

All he actually needed from Mahito was his Idle Transformation. He could have absorbed him far earlier—well, that would have upset Jogo, Hanami and Dagon, but theoretically he could have absorbed Mahito much earlier, because he truly only needed Mahito’s technique and Mahito was the most unpredictable, uncontrollable and unknowable of the bunch, but Kenjaku would never actually have done so, because—well, Mahito was his favorite. His favorite monster he had ever met, and he couldn’t help but tinker with his design, twist and turn his feral mind, play with him until he found another toy. And his hopes of finding such a diverting toy were low. So he knew he was going to wait until the last possible moment to absorb the inhumanly human cursed spirit.

And the plans that Kenjaku concocted, Mahito was truly the main attraction. His Idle Transfiguration was positively devastating, far more so than Jogo, Hanami or Dagon. Because between volcanoes, the earth, the ocean, and humans, what killed the most humans and was the most frightful to them?

Humans. Other humans.

Mahito truly was born from the stomachs of humans who hated and feared other people. It was probably the most truest primal fear of humans, alongside only darkness and death. And so Mahito was those things as well: a mirror to humans, and that mirror was death, and death was darkness and the obliteration of self, the realization pounded into your body that you were the monster.

Humans were all their own monsters.

That’s why, when touched by Mahito’s Idle Transifiguration, that’s what they became. The monsters that lived in their souls. That was what was so terrifying and horrifying about Mahito, to someone like Yuji, who wanted to see only the good in people and tried as hard as he could to deny the bad. Mahito took all that bad that was within people and brought it out, made all the horror and ugliness of the self visible in body.

And the most glorious and horrifying thing about Mahito’s technique was that it was truly idle, the transfiguration. Most of the time he didn’t try, he simply touched and let human souls warp themselves, and even when he did try, he did so so carelessly that there was never a soul that he touched thats shape and color was determined more by Mahito than by the soul itself. Human souls were just toys to Mahito that he played with like a child played with putty, and he didn’t understand why he was so terrifying to people because he didn’t understand why him killing people for the sake of killing them was any different from Yuji saving people for the sake of saving them: to Mahito, those two things truly were the same.

Kenjaku had been alive for centuries, hopping from body to body to body, and he’d seen so many different kinds of humans and curses, but Mahito was truly a beauty. He was as terrifying as a child: as innocent as a child, and just so capable of being horribly cruel, without realizing and unlike a child he was intelligent enough to philosophize and think critically, which only furthered the fact that he couldn’t learn human morality, because unlike a child that could only accept what it was told, Mahito could think for himself, and so he could tell when what he was told didn’t make sense and he could pick it apart and decide it was wrong rather than just accept it as right. He couldn’t actually be taught; he could only ever be tricked, coaxed and bargained with.

Kenjaku was evil—he was literally Kamo Noritoshi, the famed Worst Sorcerer in Sorcerer History—but Mahito beat him in evilness, because Kenjaku was consciously evil, he knew what he was doing was wrong, he just did it anyway, but Mahito was evil without even realizing, he truly didn’t understand why anything that he did was wrong.

It was almost sad, really. In many ways, Mahito was so bright and pure, was literally just like a child just wanting to play. It was just that the games that most delighted him—the games that brought him closest to humans—were the cruelest ones. It made sense, because those were the things that got at the most intimate parts of people, and it was exactly those most intimate parts of people from which Mahito was born: people’s hatreds and people’s fears.

Mahito was innocent like death was innocent: a simple phenomenon of life that was hated and feared more than anything, but simply existed, had not asked to exist, simply did as a biproduct of life itself, couldn’t not exist as it was, couldn’t help itself. Death just was, and Mahito just was.

Mahito was pathetic at the very end, finally faced with a reflection of himself. Wouldn’t you be terrified upon seeing the horrifying monster that you were?

Mahito had been innocent and oblivious, up until Yuji had reflected the horror of unreasonable and inescapable death back at him. Mahito just truly hadn’t understood before that. Just like nobody touched by Mahito’s Idle Transfiguration would have understood the ugliness and monstrosity of their souls before being touched by him and having it physically manifested so that they could have looked in the mirror and finally seen it.

In a way, Mahito and Yuji were truly idle transfigurations of each other: both of them the other’s greatest horror, hatred, fear.

Mahito a careless killer of humans, and Yuji a careless exorcist of curses, the neither of them actually understanding what they were doing. The both of them just as unreasonable as the other. And that was the horror of it for them both, ultimately. The both of them so innocent and so cruel simultaneously.

To Kenjaku, the entire thing was just interesting. He waited until that very last moment to absorb Mahito and his indispensable Idle Transfiguration.

It was a shame, really. The fact that Mahito had wasted his talent on an audience that only saw a freak. Yuji trying to find a cure when there was no disease. Mahito was simply the ugly side of humans that they’d do anything not to see.

And yet, up until the end, Mahito was doing pilates with Kenjaku, playing games with him, discussing and philosophizing with him, always eager to have fun with him. And in all Kenjaku’s centuries, there hadn’t ever been anyone like that.

One could say a lot of things about death. What people tended to fail to say about death was that death was one’s most loyal companion. The companion that, no matter what, would never leave you, was never actually there to hurt you and only actually there to share your joys and pains and then lay you to peaceful rest.

It was life that was painful. Death was gentle.

Mahito didn’t understand why his existence was horrible any more than death would.

When Okkotsu Yuta cut off his head, and Kenjaku succumbed into that gentle death, the darkness was laughing like Mahito.

It would’ve been hard not to die with a smile.

Nobody could possibly have understood death more than Kenjaku who had lived in the bodies of so many people who had died.

Chapter 15: Toji & Satoru: The Wolf

Notes:

wine was part tempranillo, part another Spanish grape variety that i forget the name of, and then part zinfandel, kinda a weird unusual blend

it gave me wolf vibes, but kinda warm wolf vibes rather than cold wolf vibes, so the song it brought to mind was SIAMÉS - The Wolf

---

Toji had thought he had cast away that pride.

But it was Gojo Satoru, the Six Eyes, the Strongest Sorcerer, and Toji was out of his head, of his heart and his mind.

Because Gojo could run but he couldn’t hide—wouldn’t run, wouldn’t hide—and every stab into his flesh that Gojo survived, he was just crying out for more, and Toji was a wolf with blood on his teeth and tongue, thrilling in the taste.

Every day he’d spent wandering in the shade, hiding from the sunshine, exposing himself only in moonlight at night, never in the day, never where he’d wanted to be, told himself he didn’t belong and didn’t need to be—

Gojo Satoru, the only person who had ever sensed Toji when he was standing behind him, the only person who’d turned to look into the shadows and seen. Only to turn away and dismiss him just like everyone else.

To be dismissed by people who couldn’t see him was one thing. To be dismissed by someone who could?

Maybe that was why Toji so burned when it came to Gojo Satoru, wanting to make him see, wanting to make him see, since he was someone who actually should be able to.

Gojo Satoru, the Six Eyes, the Strongest Sorcerer, the person everyone believed that nobody would never be able to beat, would never believe that Toji could beat, was right there, was right there, and Toji was out of his head, of his heart and his mind and he didn’t even realize that he was warping his usual self, didn’t realize how he was just desperately trying to reaffirm his identity, go against the Zen’in clan that had denied him, go against the apex of the sorcerer world, he’d lost that self-awareness, was all caught up in it, could only think that Gojo Satoru would be his, was nothing he couldn’t handle, he was strong enough, he knew that he was, he could handle it no problem, both Blue and Red, he knew about them and he knew himself, he knew that he could.

And he’d just wanted to prove it. He should have turned and run, but he just wanted to prove it, to himself and to the world, that his strength and physical prowess really was what he knew it to be.

Something’s wrong.

He’d ignored it. He’d ignored the uneasy feeling, because he knew that he could handle Blue and Red.

He hadn’t accounted for the possibility that Blue and Red could be combined into Purple.

That point where he’d gone out of his head, of his heart and his mind—at that point, he had already lost.

A lone wolf, no pack, his woman was dead and he’d given up on his cub—what was he?

What he’d seen in Gojo’s bright blue eyes, awaiting Gojo’s mistake, when Gojo had that thought He’s after Amanai Riko—that was exactly when Toji closed in for the kill, the moment he’d been waiting for.

But this time there was no Amanai Riko for Gojo to have thoughts about anymore, because Toji had already killed her.

A protector’s weakness was whatever they were protecting.

When what they were protecting was gone, and they had nothing—that was when they were the most dangerous. That was why Toji had given up Megumi.

And Toji hadn’t been thinking—he hadn’t been thinking, because all he’d thought was I can kill him, Gojo Satoru, the Six Eyes, the Strongest Sorcerer, I can show them all who the Strongest really is.

And what had that got him?

A hole through his arm and chest, a reminder of his son and that last fleeing thought before he died: Naoya would be so disappointed.

If that was somehow the most crushing thing, he didn’t live long enough to consider why.

Gojo Satoru had sensed him when Toji was behind him, but who had actually seen and acknowledged his strength?

Zen’in Naoya, and only Zen’in Naoya, that sinfully cute godawful brat. He must’ve grown into both a looker and a little shit. Those fucking gold eyes with those long dark lashes and that infuriating smug-ass grin that said that he knew he was right and everyone else was an idiot and that just so happened to include that Toji was the strongest even though nobody else saw it.

In the end, Toji really had only wanted to prove himself. Maybe he’d only wanted to prove what those complacent golden eyes had seen when they’d looked at him.

What was he, after all, except a lone wolf without a pack? Wanting one, but not able to have it.

Wolves, and humans, were social creatures…

So what was a social creature with no one.

A more dangerous one…

And also a more pathetic one.

May Gojo Satoru be cursed to that same loneliness, or take in Megumi and raise him like Toji couldn’t.

Notes:

*casually dropping a Naoya mention in every Toji chapter bc i love them*

Chapter 16: Satoru: Burnt Offerings

Notes:

so uh i was writing these but then first neglecting and then forgetting to post them, and now i have several saved up and it was making it harder and harder to actually post them... so haha, with some encouragement from my friend i'm gonna be posting one a day until i get through them

this chapter was a mystery red wine, i think it may even have been the same as the mystery one before but oh well, found a different song for it

i don’t like this one it tastes like burnt cherry wood lol, like definitely dead vibes guess that’s why last time it was skeletons and this time it’s burnt offerings

and it’s Gojo again. he’s just got those vibes i guess

so yeah the song for this one is Traitrs - Burnt Offerings

Gojo is like personified existentialism lmao, so uh warning for very very very existential thoughts

---

His was a charred soul. Bubblegum lip gloss on his lips because otherwise all he tasted was charcoal and ash and the ozone where the smoke climbed seeking colder skies.

His was a cold soul, all burnt up so there was nothing left to set alight and create heat, nothing but blackness to smear like blood in the spaces between the icy glints of stars.

His was an abyssal soul, an abysmal soul, a galactic soul where everything and nothing intertwined as one and the same, no edges between the beginning and end of infinity, no start in memory and no end in sight. Even death and life were intertwisted, conflated, the meaning that they had when defined against each other made meaningless. He could die, he could come back, it was all the same. He saw everything and felt nothing, and that was the same.

It was his birthright as the Six Eyes to decided who lived and who died. Such arbitrary decisions to make, when everyone always died in the end. Another day of life, another year, another decade, a century, a millennium. There were individuals who had all of those, and they were all the same. Just an inconsequential and minuscule part of infinity.

Satoru did what he could. What he couldn’t, he didn’t worry about. All life was was ability. Inability simply wasn’t worth time. Better to do what he could than worry about what he couldn’t. Do do do, do all he could, simply because he was alive. Only in death could he rest, and he could never rest long.

He’d gotten attached once. It hadn’t ended well. Not that it had started well either. Maybe the middle had been fine. But that was usually the way with most things. The middle was easy; the beginnings and ends were always hard. Cutting infinity into segments like trying to constellate patterns in a cloudless sky.

It was Satoru’s birthright to decide who lived and who died. The first time he’d let Suguru walk away free; the second time he killed Suguru with his own hands. The first choice hadn’t worked, so he only had the second left. There were only two. Let live or let die. Make live or make die. They were the same in the end. But usually seen as ‘let live or make die’, or ‘make life or let die’. As if passive and active actions were any different. Everything was an action, even doing nothing. Perhaps most accurate, then, the choice was only ever ‘do something or do nothing’.

The one time Satoru had done nothing, it hadn’t ended well.

After that, he’d vowed to always chose to do something. It didn’t really matter what. It just had to be something.

He gave offerings. He burnt those offerings. He did everything, because it was better than doing nothing, even though it didn’t change anything either way in the end.

Eventually he would die in a way he couldn’t come back from. But that day was not today. Never today.

He said goodbye to today, and then today became yesterday and tomorrow became today, so ultimately all one ever had was today, yesterday was just a distorted memory and tomorrow was just an imagining, either a fearing or a hoping. All one had was now.

Satoru said goodbye to now, said hello to now, wrapped it around his fingers like a cat’s cradle and strung it as deftly as he was able with ten fingers and Six Eyes. Burnt all the offerings he made and then offered again, burnt it again, smeared bubblegum gloss on his lips to obscure the taste of charcoal and ash, covering up all the burnt char, trying to hide from them, the future ghosts of the past, and everything inside, that insatiable nothingness where Heaven and Earth were both just different worldviews of Hell.

Throughout Heaven and Earth, I alone am the Honored One—

Throughout Hell, I alone am the Honored One.

It was Satoru’s birthright as the Six Eyes to decided who lived and who died.

He himself did both, all of the time. Every beginning an end to what was before and every end a beginning of what was coming, and the middle was only ever an illusion of constancy, for it was always just the transition between beginning and end and yet everyone thought it was some kind of stability. It wasn’t.

Every split second of existence was a death and rebirth all at once.

It was that knowledge which let Satoru relax when he actually did lie down to sleep for the night, or the afternoon, or evening, or the morning.

Sleep was just a beginning and ending either compressed or extended in perception of time depending on the dream or lack thereof, and every moment was a new one where he could say goodbye to the past and start again.

He’d gotten attached once, and it hadn’t ended well. That attempted clinging to a middle, to a stability, as if eternity were a consistency rather than a changeability.

Now, Satoru held himself aloof, apart, touching only on others like the light of a star close enough to be called a sun: he touched them so closely, so much that they felt him, but in actuality he was an infinity away, looking upon them like a sun could only look upon its planet: Ah, what small and distant life—but how beautiful. And so for them I shall continue to shine, simply because I am what I am and am shining as I am anyway. If they relish in the light, what of it? It makes them happy, and it doesn’t hurt me any. So I’ll shine until I physically can’t anymore and implode and explode all at once.

Not that stars had thoughts, but Satoru had the thoughts for the stars, they were that called suns just by virtue of their proximity to planets that basked in their light, and it had nothing to do with the stars and everything to do with him, but that meant also that it had everything to do with the stars and nothing to do with him, had everything to do with the stars and everything to do with him, had nothing to do with the stars and nothing to do with him.

Three walls boxing one in were a cell but four walls boxing one in were a bedroom. Who had thought that up?

Clearly it was privacy that meant security and safety, and exposure that meant vulnerability and danger. What of it?

A cell was also a bedroom, and a bedroom was also a cell.

Satoru burnt all his offerings, because he couldn’t stand to sit by and see them wilt.

When he’d done that, it hadn’t ended well.

Better to be the one in control, than to leave things up to the unpredictability of ‘fate’.

Satoru was the actor of his own fate, he’d decided.

He wouldn’t be passive about anything anymore.

Chapter 17: Sukuna & Uraume: Yuki (雪, “Snow”)

Notes:

when does one day end and the next day start? i dunno. i fell asleep on one day and it was dark, i woke up on the same day and it was light. though it was actually only a few hours later bc my sleep issues are so bad the eyebags are eternal. if i considered it a new day every time i woke up i'd have a ridiculous number of days with all the random napping - and then i'd also have days that didn't end for days - but here, have another chapter anyway bc i refuse to be constrained by the arbitrary determination of midnight or 24h periods of time :)

this chapter the wine was actually a Japanese sake, and sake doesn't give me quite the same kind of atmospheric feelings simply bc wine made from rice is a lot more subtle than wine made from grapes, sake just always has a certain softness and smoothness of feeling to it. the main difference i taste in sakes is that they either taste cold or taste warm (independent of the actual temperature they're drunk at).

this was a sake named "Hope" in Japanese, and it tasted like snowfall, but warmly like snowfall rather than coldly like snowfall. if that makes sense lol.

the song it made me think of was Adrian von Ziegler - Yuki (雪, “Snow”)

and it made me think of Uraume, which i was happy to get to write with them and Sukuna :)

---

Uraume, also known as The Frozen Star, had the innate technique of Ice Formation, with such extensions as Frost Calm and Icefall. And yet Uraume was not cold; Uraume was the warmest presence that Sukuna had ever known. Everything was easy with Uraume, everything was warm.

He’d just happened to find Uraume as a child in the snow, all alone. But he’d been all alone in the snow, too. A giant of a man with four arms and four eyes half of which were splayed in a disfigured bone extension of his skull like a half-mask on the right side of his face, and Uraume a genderless child with a dark plum pink irregular line running through their snow-white hair, dark pink eyes and an expression blank as ice until Sukuna first succeeded in making them emote.

And yet the emotion which was shown was not fear, but hope, awe, adoration.

It wasn’t something Sukuna would have thought anyone would ever have felt towards him, especially not a child. But Uraume was just cold enough to the rest of the world to be warm towards him, as he defied it.

Uraume had never thought that someone would reach out a hand to them; Sukuna had never thought that if he reached out a hand to someone they would take it.

Uraume’s ability was ice, and Sukuna’s was slashes and fire. But somehow despite their natures, Uraume was warm towards him, and Sukuna was soft towards them.

That day over a thousand years ago, Sukuna had lit a large campfire and they’d sat around it in the falling snow as the sky darkened and the fire glowed, the soft gray snowflakes gently drifting like sparks in the flames’ fiery light.

The child stayed with him, and then lived for him for over a thousand years by being so cold as to be able to freeze time within themself.

Yet to Sukuna, all Uraume was was warm.

Chapter 18: Suguru, Suguru & Satoru: Summon the Choir

Notes:

wine was a riesling, song was Aviators - Summon the Choir

previous Suguru chapters were to dark, full-bodied tannin-y reds, which i would definitely associate with him, but this one was a smooth medium-bodied white with mineral notes. which was why it made me think of the song above since it reminded me of the feeling of those videos you can find on youtube where someone takes a song but makes it sound like it's being played in an empty church, which is not what that song is but it's got a similar vibe

anyways, given Suguru's quasi-religious thing, this one could really only go to him lol

---

Suguru had had an epiphany that night, seeing those two young sorcerer girls in a cage, beaten and starved like animals, abused and neglected, the townspeople—the monkeys—behind him saying over and over kitsune-tsuki, kitsune-tsuki, possessed by a fox.

Suguru’s epiphany was this: all humans should just die.

They were the cause of curses in the first place. And yet they required sorcerers to help them, and yet they condemned sorcerers for what they could see and do.

It was wrong. The entire thing was wrong.

He had newly granted eyes.

Monkeys shouldn’t be saved; monkeys were the problem. Like Tsukomo Yuki had said, cull the humans and they’d adapt, they’d have to become sorcerers, and if everyone was a sorcerer, there would be no more curses, no more rags that had been used to wipe up shit and vomit down Suguru’s throat.

He knew it wouldn’t be easy, unless he amassed a large enough curse army. He wasn’t Gojo Satoru with the power to wipe out the entirety of Japan with hardly more than a gesture of his hand. But in order to make the world a better place for sorcerers, for children like Nanako and Mimiko, he could swallow as many cursed spirits as it took.

This world needed a savior, and Suguru would be it.

A group of sorcerers who believed in him congregated, and he began the recovery.

Everything that he had previously believed in had fallen. And all that had fallen from him was draped around Satoru’s shoulders, Satoru taking up a mantle for something he hadn’t even believed in.

I could kill all of them, Satoru had said to Suguru, in the church of the Star Religious Group, Amanai Riko’s dead body in his arms.

Suguru had talked him down from it, then. Now he hated himself for it.

I hate having to protect the weak, Satoru had said in their classroom, to Suguru and Principal Yaga and everyone.

Suguru had reasoned with him, then, how it was the duty of the strong to protect the weak. Now he hated himself for it.

Satoru had fallen to the influence that Suguru had had on him.

Maybe Suguru had fallen to the influence that Satoru had had on him. Maybe they’d switched places.

Suguru’s dream would have been more realizable by Satoru. But that didn’t mean that Suguru wasn’t going to do everything he could.

Summon the choir of cursed spirits—he’d be the conductor for all of them, use them to play a symphony of horror and violence. The treatment would take its toll, but by the end, he’d have changed the human soul.

He was righteous and divine; his dreams would be realized. Cursed spirits were a power beyond control, but he could control them. He, the messiah.

They flocked to him and gathered round him, those sorcerers who believed in him, his dear family. He’d make the world better for all of them.

(“Suguru’s a cult leader,” Satoru said, but Suguru wasn’t there to hear him.)

There was nothing to stand in Suguru’s way, aside from Satoru. But, if he could get his hands on Okkotsu’s Yuta’s special-graded vengeful spirit Orimoto Rika… then Satoru wouldn’t be so much of a problem.

The realization that Suguru had had—he wished he hadn’t talked Satoru down from those realizations for himself.

“You’re still the only best friend I’ve ever had”—fuck, no wonder Satoru had listened to him. Upholding an ideal that Suguru no longer believed in.

“Can’t you at least curse me at my end?”

(What Suguru hadn’t realized was that Satoru felt as guilty for the view Suguru had taken as Suguru felt for Satoru’s. Both of them thinking the other frenzied by the illusion of the way the world should be.)

If Satoru had been in Suguru’s place, Suguru wouldn’t have been able to do anything to stop him.

It didn’t fail to strike Suguru, as Satoru laid him there gently to rest: that it was only Satoru’s lasting affection for him that had allowed him to live so long, evading retribution.

If Satoru had wanted to find and annihilate him, he could have. But he hadn’t done it, because he hadn’t wanted to. It was just that, standing there, Suguru had forced him.

What hurt the most was that Satoru killed him not out of anger or hatred, but out of pity.

What had Suguru ever done to warrant Satoru taking on his old view about sorcerers protecting humans?

(What Suguru didn’t realize was that his epiphany was his and his alone, by virtue of his innate technique: to him, curses were the most loathsome part of his existence, for swallowing them distressed him so; for Satoru, curses were the most enjoyable part of his existence, for getting to use his power to exorcise them delighted him so. So Satoru had an understanding, far more than Suguru did, that without curses his existence, sorcerer as he was, would be nothing.)

(What Suguru had had, which Satoru hadn’t, was his ability to draw people to him and make them love him. Satoru had always struggled with making people even remotely like him. So used to, as the Six Eyes, being feared and hated, Satoru would take any approval and kindness he could get, no matter how he had to skew himself to connect with those he didn’t understand—so used to silently suffering, being a Curse Manipulator as he was, Suguru was able to connect easily with those who had suffered similarly, was able to easily sympathize with those who felt wronged by the world.)

(Beauty, and horror, were both in the eyes of the beholder: Suguru and Satoru had had different eyes, and so they’d lived in different worlds.)

First blood from cosmic wonders—Satoru, always Satoru—and a dark flood, a power from under—that was Suguru, swallowing and manipulating the very curses that Satoru so delighted in exorcising from the world—

Fear me, for I am not one but a legion—but Satoru never would, would he? Satoru didn’t fear anything.

Satoru didn’t understand anything.

Dying for a transfusion—Suguru would have taken any innate ability aside from his own.

(Satoru wouldn’t have given up his Limitless and Six Eyes for the world.)

(In the end, maybe that was why Satoru had been able to be more or less content with the world why Suguru wasn’t. Suguru wanting only to kill the virus in their midst, Satoru wanting only an experimental taste of moonlight’s bliss: Suguru wanting to control the world with a power he couldn’t abide, Satoru with a power beyond most control that he wanted simultaneously to indulge in and to obscure. Suguru became priest of a church, and Satoru became a teacher—so similar, and yet so different. Both of them striving to guide—but in different ways, Suguru by religion and Satoru by education; Suguru by heart and Satoru by head.)

The choir of cursed spirits died in Suguru that day.

They were resurrected with Kenjaku, an existence so loathsome that Suguru would rather choke himself to death than be part of it.

Not that he was strong enough to.

Kenjaku, like Satoru, was simply fundamentally stronger than he.

(But if Kenjaku had been as much of a cult leader as Suguru had been, he would have been much more dangerous than he was.)

The surgery was complete: Suguru’s body wasn’t his anymore; it was Kenjaku’s. And Kenjaku would do with it what he would.

Notes:

Suguru canonically plays on Buddhism but the line Fear me, for I am not one but a legion is a play on a quote from Lucifer in the Christian Bible, the Gospel of Mark, chapter five, verse nine, "My name is Legion for we are many." I'm not religious so I only know this because of the German song E Nomine - Lucifer and the very helpful footnote on this page with the German lyrics translated into English that i visited back when my German wasn't good enough to understand everything, and i remembered that line thinking it was interesting and it came up in my memory recently because of Suguru and how much it fits him. Honestly a lot of the song does haha. So it's hard not to bring in Christian religious references even though i know all the canon references are to Buddhism. But there's not much about him that is in line with Buddhist beliefs, from what research i've done, if anything he goes completely against them so i'm guessing his Buddhism thing is meant to be darkly ironic.

also does anyone else think that his large ears make him look kinda monkey-like. bc that's pretty ironic, too

a lot about him is ironic, bc in his goal of protecting sorcerers, he ends up instead causing sorcerers a lot of pain and death, both when alive and then especially with his body ending up in the hands of Kenjaku bc of his actions. his perception rlly was just so warped bc of his ability that he couldn't see the forest for the trees, and so he became something as ugly as what he hated (perhaps you rlly are what you eat)

(Suguru swallowing cursed spirits.. meanwhile, Satoru consuming empty calories)

Chapter 19: Yuta/Rika: Welcome To The Jungle

Notes:

excited to get this one up so here :)

wine was a shiraz that could choke you, song was Tommee Profitt - Welcome To The Jungle

---

“Listen to me when I say, this will never go away.”

His mother, his father, his sister, the others, they didn’t understand.

“Can’t you feel it too? That someone’s watching you?”

They didn’t understand.

“Rika-chan, she’s always with me… she’s never leaving… not ever.”

They thought he was crazy. They thought he was delusional. They thought he was mad with grief and denial.

He wasn’t. Rika-chan really was there, she was always there, and she hurt people. She was always watching, and she hurt anyone who got close to him. Her ghost wasn’t every going away. She would always haunt him. He knew it deep in his soul because he could feel her there.

She would never go away. No matter where he might hide, no matter where he might run. You couldn’t hide or run from yourself, and she was part of him, the monster in his jungle.

He couldn’t even die, because she was part of him. And he part of her.

That was why he feared her so. That was why he hated himself so. Because she was part him and he was part of her, and she hurt people. He hurt people. Because he and Rika-chan loved each other and didn’t want anyone else. They just wanted each other. And that mutual love was eternal, undying.

And so she was undying, too. And so he was also undying. Because he was part of her, and she was part of him, inextricable. She would never go away for as long as he lived, and he would never die for as long as she was with him.

Every day he walked through the jungle, a prisoner of the jungle, and it was a dark jungle, one he could barely see through. Towering trees that the sun couldn’t pierce through, strangling vines that he could barely make his way through. He held Rika-chan close because he couldn’t let her go, and kept others at bay because she hurt people, and he wanted to die so that he could be with Rika-chan forever like he should be. But she didn’t want that, because she wanted to stay with him. And he wanted to hide, and he wanted to run, and he wanted to die, but he didn’t want to let her go. He never wanted to let her go.

He should’ve known that it wasn’t she who had cursed him, but he who had cursed her. He should have known that he was the one keeping her there, preventing her from finding peace. He should have known that it was she and not he who was the prisoner of the jungle. He should have known.

He was the jungle and she was his jungle’s monster, and he loved her, like she loved him. It was true and mutual love.

And so every day he walked through the jungle, but lifted up on her beautiful monstrous shoulders, he could see the sun filtering through, the vines didn’t tangle him, and he wanted to stay alive so he could share this with her.

They were so strong together. Others better hide, and others better run, because he was Okkotsu Yuta and his ghost was Orimoto Rika-chan, and theirs was a love so strong that together, the each of them a part of the other, they had even greater cursed energy than Yuta’s distant relative Gojo Satoru.

“You’re lucky, you know,” Gojo told him, gaze hidden behind bandages. “Most people never have a love like yours. I certainly never have and never will. Being alone is probably the suckiest thing ever, but you’ll literally never be alone because Rika-chan will always be there. So you’re really lucky, y’know?”

Yuta wondered if Gojo could feel Rika-chan there, watching them. With his Six Eyes, Gojo probably could.

Yuta felt a little bad, almost. Gojo was essentially telling him that he’d never loved someone and had resigned himself to never doing so.

But what could Yuta do in response except to smile brightly and say, “Yeah, I know. Because of Rika-chan I’m the luckiest person ever.”

In his soul, he could feel Rika-chan hum with pleasure.

He did rather agree that Gojo would never love anyone like he loved Rika-chan, that Gojo would never have anyone who loved him like Rika-chan loved him, but he kind of wished it might happen someday, even as he knew that it wouldn’t, just so he could say, “Gojo-sensei, welcome to the jungle.”

Love was a jungle, one so incredibly dark and yet so phenomenally beautiful. One that you were both the prisoner of and the monster of.

“Listen to me when I say, this will never go away”—there were not many who could say that about their love, and have it actually be true.

Chapter 20: Satoru: Monster Killer

Notes:

i am dead but have managed to resurrect myself enuf to post this

wine was a cabernet sauvignon that i picked out mostly bc it had an egyptian pyramid on the label and i am fond of ancient egyptian history, all three of my pet kingsnakes have egyptian names lol, anyways the song it tasted like was The Enigma TNG - Monster Killer

and more existentialism from Satoru

---

From birth, Gojo Satoru was the Six Eyes.

From birth, sorcerers and cursed spirits alike feared him and wanted him dead.

So he was swore, from a young age, that he would save his life and kill all the monsters. Nobody else would.

He would be the monster killer.

He would be the most monstrous being out there.

He was Gojo Satoru, the Six Eyes from birth. The world opened itself up to him and bent to his hand. Space was his to manipulate; time was his to leave behind.

There was nothing more monstrous than the universe itself, and that was what he saw through his eyes, looking out of his eyes and looking into his eyes, a Möbius strip and Schrödinger’s cat all at once, the inside and the outside intertwined, dead and alive at the same time.

Humanity was a pleasant daydream he only entertained.

Humanity was an empty daydream he entwined his fingers with but kept an infinity away.

There was an infinity between him and the rest of the world; that was how monstrous he was, the endless bored yawning of the universe, wider, wider, wider, a limitless void.

He was the monster killer, he swallowed everything, turned it to dust in his palm like eternity did to every transient life, nobody and nothing more than a feathery blink of his eye, tickling his cheek like maybe tears would feel if his Six Eyes could cry.

How dare Suguru make himself more monstrous than he. How dare he.

Satoru was the monster killer, the most monstrous being out there. And yet killing the monsters weaker than him made him the good guy?

He was Gojo Satoru, the Six Eyes, the monster killer, and so he had to kill Geto Suguru, too.

How dare you, Suguru. How dare you become a monster I have to catch up to.

“Please,” Okkotsu Yuta begged him, “don’t bear the burden of being a monster alone anymore.”

It couldn’t be helped.

He was Gojo Satoru, the Six Eyes from birth. He was Gojo Satoru, the best friend of genocidal terrorist Geto Suguru.

He was Gojo Satoru, the monster killer. And so he had to be the most monstrous being out there.

Ryomen Sukuna was a child and only knew how to play.

Satoru was the human daydream of the universe and didn’t know either how to live nor how to die.

Please, don’t let this be a dream…

Death really was a much more pleasant dream than life.

No longer endless infinity, but finally the resolved nothingness of an end.

Death was just life’s remedy. Life was just death’s fever dream.

And so it turned out that just like everyone else, Satoru was just the feathery blink of an eye within eternity.

Open; close. A beginning, a middle and an end.

How nice, instead of being a meaningless infinity, to be a meaningfully concluded story.

How nice.

The universe couldn’t have asked anything more from its dream of being human.

Thank you, Sukuna, you ignorant child who so avidly eschews the true horror—and beauty—of the world.

I feel so sorry for you.

But thank you.

Notes:

my comparative literature degree shalt not be forgotten. lol

combine that with all the philosophy courses and lo and behold, this is what i write when i'm drunk :)) turns out this wine was 14.9% alcohol volume and i didn't check before drinking... got drunker than i realized i would

and to make it even better, the other wine i got which i tried right after this one was also 14.9% alcohol volume... yeah, next chapter is one that i don't remember writing half of haha

Chapter 21: Toge, Toge & Satoru: Night Time

Notes:

wine was a Monstrell, and like i said 14.9% alcohol volume lol, the song it tasted like was Amorf - Night Time

also like i said i don't remember writing the second half of this one so it gets a little more sentimental at the end there than i would have let myself write while more sober due to the supposed canon compliance of these pieces, but i just love the canonically unexplored potential dynamic between Toge and Satoru given the nature of their abilities

---

Because of his birth defect where his Cursed Speech was always activated, he couldn’t turn it off, unless it was something innocuous like rice ball ingredients Toge couldn’t say a peep.

What happened if he talked in his sleep?

What happened if he walked and talked in his sleep?

He had to bar the door.

Sometimes he woke up on the floor, no idea how he got there.

Sometimes, in the night, when there was no one else there and he was sure no one else could hear, he talked to himself, just to hear himself speak. Just to feel like he was there. Like someone was there.

Nobody truly conversed to him, because he couldn’t converse back. He couldn’t truly converse with anyone because he could only convey what could be conveyed in patterns of when rice ball ingredients were used, the nuance of his voice and the expression around his eyes.

He could convey a lot, actually, just with that.

But he couldn’t convey everything.

It was fine, it really was. He had friends, they understood him, he enjoyed trolling them. It was fine. He was fine.

It was just that at night he had to bar the door, because he walked in his sleep, and what if he talked in his sleep? He couldn’t turn his Cursed Speech off. Snakebite on his face all the time, a mouth nearly as wide as his skull.

Snakes could strike faster than a human could blink their eye, and Toge’s technique hit as fast as the speed of sound.

Only Gojo Satoru was immune, because he could move faster than the speed of sound, and not even cursed energy dispatched through sound could pass through Infinity.

Gojo Satoru was safe. He was the Six Eyes.

He was the only one.

Toge couldn’t control the power on his tongue.

Nobody realized how powerful words truly were. Nobody thought about it. They didn’t have Cursed Speech, they didn’t understand it the way he did.

Words were power. The pen was mightier than the sword. The soft power of speech could control people so much better than hard power of weapons and strength ever could.

Hard power controlled the body.

Soft power controlled the heart and the soul.

Sometimes, Toge thought he was even more dangerous than Gojo.

Gojo could make people do what he wanted by threatening them.

But Toge could make people do what he wanted just by telling them.

When Gojo did it, it was still people’s choice to listen to listen to him out of fear.

When Toge did it, nobody had any choice at all. They had to listen, because his Cursed Speech hijacked their very brains, enforcing authority on them.

All humans had weakness to the power of authority and authoritative command. All. It was just part of human nature: the person with the most confidence and authority won. Anyone with the slightest insecurity at all would bow.

Command and confidence worked like that. It niggled into the brain like that, exerted its influence like that, subdued like that. Everyone had insecurities and uncertainties.

Cursed Speech was essentially Charisma on Max Power.

Toge knew what he was doing. He knew what he was saying. When he did that, anyone aside from the Six Eyes would listen. It was ingrained in their social beings.

The confident person knew what was best. Listen to the most confident person. That will guarantee your survival.

That was how Cursed Speech worked. It penetrated into that part of the human brain—or essence of cursed spirit—that stemmed directly from need for survival. Which was, actually, quite a lot of the human brain and cursed spirit essence. Survival instincts always reigned first; all logic and higher thought came only after basic survival needs were satisfied.

That was how Cursed Speech worked. And Toge couldn’t turn his off.

And so he couldn’t ever truly connect with anyone, because he could never be on the same level as any of them.

He could only either be Absolute Commander, or so-innocuous-I-only-speak-in-rice-ball-ingredients-that-don’t-mean-anything-and-you-have-to-interpret-all-meaning-for-yourself-which-is-really-whatever-you-want-to-interpret-in-the-situation-ultimately.

He is only power was Absolute or None At All.

And so he couldn’t truly connect with anyone, because he couldn’t truly communicate with anyone.

The only person he could truly talk to was himself, when he was alone in his barred room with his comforter stuffed against the door to block the crack beneath it, when nobody could hear and nobody could be affected, it was just him talking to himself in the night just to hear himself speak and that he really did have a voice that could say more than just commands and rice ball ingredients.

Night time was his favorite time of day, because of that.

So peaceful, so relaxed, not needing to worry about anything than anyone would hear him say.

And yet still, even in his own room with his comforter against the door, he only spoke to himself quietly, in murmurs, just to be safe. Because the power of speech, and so the power of Cursed Speech, was just so insane. The way it wound itself into people’s minds.

Even just a single word was worth so much more than a thousand swords.

And so Toge didn’t truly speak to anyone but himself, in the middle of the night, when nobody else could hear.

Night really was the best, the moonbeams shining straight through the window to the floor where he’d wake up, having barred the door because he walked in his sleep and so who knew what he said in his sleep, what if he told someone to die?

Unless they were the Six Eyes, they would kill themselves.

That was the power of speech—just look at cult leaders who led their followers to suicide with only a few words—and that was even more the power of Cursed Speech:

Just like a snake swallowed their pray whole, Cursed Speech swallowed the minds of its targets whole, left no room whatsoever for negotiation.

That was how powerful his unmitigated Cursed Speech was:

He was only even able to attend Tokyo Tech because Gojo Satoru was a teacher there and he was the Six Eyes.

Only when either alone with just himself or just with Gojo Satoru did Toge feel truly safe.

And both those times only ever happened in the night, when nobody else was awake.

“I’m sorry,” Toge said one night, hugging Gojo tightly.

“Don’t be,” Gojo said, stroking his back. “I was born with my Six Eyes that I can’t control; you were born with your Snakebite that you can’t control. We’re the same, in that. We’re both so much more dangerous than anyone realizes, and have to mitigate ourselves just to even remotely socialize with them. I get it.”

If sometimes Toge cried, and Gojo held him, well.

That was their night time secret.

Notes:

what do you think happens if Toge sings?

Chapter 22: Naoya & Satoru: Too Sweet

Notes:

well it's my birthday today which is perfect for this chapter update, bc i especially love these two :)

so have a GoNao Naoya & Satoru chapter~♡ canon compliant bc we don't know anything at all abt the relationship between these two aside at all lol, aside from that Satoru is the only person aside from Toji who Naoya respects at all. but they are so similar while being so different so you can't tell me there's no way they would have a thing, especially given Toji. they definitely interacted and had a thing

wine was a zinfandel, song was Hozier - Too Sweet

---

Back then, Satoru had never spoken a word. He’d just glare at everyone with his ice-cold blue eyes, freezing them in place and making them shiver and quake. And then he’d turn away from them all, dismissing them, making them know just how weak and inconsequential they were.

Now, Satoru was talking all the time, animated and smiling, blithe and lively. He covered his stunning blue Six Eyes so that nobody would be frozen. He sought people out, befriending them even if they were weak, trying to bring them just a little bit higher up towards his level.

…

Back then, Naoya had loved him.

Now, Naoya didn’t care much about him at all.

…

Back then, Satoru hadn’t cared about him at all.

Now, Satoru worried about him some.

…

Back then, Satoru had been like drinking coffee black, taking whiskey neat, going to bed at three.

Now, Satoru was bright as the morning, soft as the rain, pretty as a vine and sweet as a grape.

…

Back then, Naoya would wake up for the sunrise.

Now, it was ten o’clock before Naoya even said a word.

…

Back then, Naoya had wondered how Satoru could sleep at all.

Now, he wondered how Satoru could sleep so well.

…

Back then, Satoru hadn’t compromised himself for anyone.

Now, Satoru was pretending for people all the time.

…

Back then, Naoya had aimed high, for the heavens he thought he could see.

Now, Naoya aimed low, aimed true for the ground where he would go.

…

Back then, Naoya would play hooky and shirk his duties.

Now, Naoya would work late and the jobs got done.

…

Back then, Satoru would tell him to live right, to take things seriously.

Now, Satoru told him to rest and ease up, to not take things so seriously.

…

Back then, Naoya told Satoru he’d be just as immortal as him.

Now, Naoya asked Satoru who wanted to live forever.

…

Back then, Satoru would be dark as a lake and smelling like a bonfire.

Now, Satoru was drunk on life and obscured in a haze.

…

Back then, Naoya was bright as a bonfire and smelling like lake water.

Now, Naoya was jaded by life and lost in a haze.

…

Back then, every look from Satoru was like hellfire.

Now, Satoru moved his lips like they were Heaven’s gate.

…

Back then, Satoru had made Naoya feel like he was on fire in the most pleasant way.

Now, Satoru made Naoya feel like he was dripping with sun in the most unpleasant way.

…

Back then, Naoya told Satoru that he should live it up a bit more.

Now, Naoya told Satoru that he didn’t have to pretend.

…

Back then, Naoya was too sweet for Satoru.

Now, Satoru was too sweet for Naoya.

…

Back then, Satoru had thought everything bitter, and Naoya had wanted everything to be sweet.

Now, Satoru wanted everything to be sweet, and Naoya knew everything to be bitter.

…

Back then, Naoya had seen Toji but Satoru had not.

Now, Satoru had seen Toji while Naoya had lost him.

…

Maybe they had reached for the other so completely that they had both passed each other and ended up on the other side of one another.

Or maybe Satoru had simply decided that life was better with sugar, while Naoya had decided that he would take life like had Toji, not respecting himself or anybody.

…

Back then, Naoya had looked at Satoru with nothing but awe and admiration, while Satoru had looked back at him with nothing but contempt and disregard.

Now, Naoya looked at Satoru with a trace of disregard, while Satoru looked back at him with a trace of sadness.

…

“If you’re drunk on life, Satoru-kun, I think that’s great. If you can sit in a barrel and age like rice wine, maybe I’ll wait.♡”

“You’d have to wait for infinity, Naoya.”

Naoya’s lips quirked. “Then I’ll wait for you in death. I’ll have infinity, then.”

Behind opaque black glasses, Satoru’s blue eyes turned away, but still couldn’t not see him. Could have closed and still not been able to not see him.

The taste on his tongue was too bitter so he filled his coffee with cream and sugar.

Naoya, across from him, sipped his coffee black, just like his second nephew. Both he and Toji’s son Megumi, not to impress anybody, they just always drank it that way.

Maybe if Satoru consumed enough sugar he could actually die; of diabetes.

Notes:

"Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them."
- Richard Siken - Editors Pages: The Long and Short of It

one of my fav quotes i've learned from my best friend, alongside "“If you love me, [...] you don’t love me in a way I understand.” from Richard Siken's "Wishbone"

oh lol i only realized just now looking them up that they're from the same author, never read anything by the guy myself just got told the quotes and liked them so much they've significantly affected the way i approach the relationships i write. along with all the psychological stuff i've learned from my best friend who studies psychology and neuroscience. and just the relationship we have in general, it's something i hadn't known could actually exist

anyways, my birthday-induced reflecting-on-my-life-my-writing-my-relationships-and-where-i-want-to-go-from-here-in-the-next-year-of-my-life and-apparently-this-inspired-chattiness-bc-i-want-some-of-this-to-be-made-existant-outside-of-me-just-in-case-i-die-in-some-freak-accident-before-reaching-27-bc-wtf-how-am-i-26-now-i-still-haven't-figured-out-my-life aside, this is the last chapter i'd had saved up, but since it's my birthday maybe i'll get another wine later :) hahah

Chapter 23: Toji, Naoya: Kamikazee

Notes:

well, no wine for my birthday bc we went out and got fancy cocktails instead. gotta spice things up from time to time

this wine was a viognier, the song it tasted like was MISSIO - Kamikazee - Stripped

---

Only in retrospect, right before death, would they realize that they’d been like kamikaze, dive-bombing to their ends in their pursuit of glory and their desire.

…

Toji wanted money first and foremost. Secondly, he wanted the fame. He knew that his black heart was to blame.

He shouldn’t want it, but he wanted it, and it was killing his black soul.

He wanted the money, and he wanted the fame. So he left, and he became the Sorcerer Killer, and when the opportunity arrived to take down Gojo Satoru he couldn’t say no. Even when he should have run, because he wasn’t even getting paid, he couldn’t turn away.

Even more than the money, he wanted the fame. To defeat the Strongest.

He wished he had only cared for the money. He wished he didn’t want that fame. But he did, and he knew his black heart was to blame, that pride that he’d thought he’d cast aside, and it killed his black soul.

In his pursuit of the glory he so desired, he’d just been a kamikaze, dive-bombing to his end.

…

Naoya wanted power, and he wanted champagne, a celebration of his self. Maybe his black heart was to blame.

He just wanted to be able to know he had the right to stand beside Toji-kun. They all said he shouldn’t want it, but he wanted it, and it was killing his black soul.

He wanted the power, and he wanted the champagne. He didn’t care about money because he already had it, and he didn’t care about fame because he didn’t care about the opinions. It was only for himself that he wanted it. It was only for himself that he worked to increased his strength and speed—power was mass times speed—and it was only for himself that he wanted to kill Megumi, that he wanted to kill Maki.

Even more than the power, he wanted the champagne, that celebration with himself of his self, following in Toji’s footsteps.

And so he had. He followed Toji like a kamikaze, dive-bombing to his death in his pursuit of glory. And then just like Toji, even after dying, he came back and did it again.

Maybe his black heart was to blame. Maybe he shouldn’t have wanted it, but he did, and it killed his black soul.

…

They’d wanted money, power, champagne and fame. Their black hearts were to blame. They shouldn’t have wanted it, but they wanted it, and it killed their black souls.

In the end, they were just kamikazee, dive-bombing to their deaths in their pursuit of their desire. They were as freaky as a bayonet set on fire, were as guilty as a liquored up mistress whore; they were so lonely.

They were so lonely, and so they lied to themselves.

They didn’t really want the money, they didn’t really want the power, they didn’t really want the champagne, they didn’t really want the fame.

All they’d really wanted was to be able to stand next to each other. Toji next to the Zen’ins’ genius golden child and heir, Naoya next to the Strongest and the one who’d left everything behind.

But even a genius golden child was still human, and even one who’d left cursed energy behind couldn’t leave behind his humanity.

In the end, they were both just kamikaze, dive-bombing to their ends in their pursuit of another kamikaze just like them.

They just wanted money, power, champagne and fame—

They just wanted to be able to stand beside each other, feeling like they belonged there, without any shame.

Blame their black hearts. Blame their black souls.

But they were just kamikaze; so lonely that in their desperate desire to live and mean something, they could only careen to their deaths, even upon given another chance at existence.

Notes:

somebody cares about you♡

Chapter 24: Megumi, Megumi & Gojo: Down

Notes:

wine was a cabernet sauvignon claiming low residual sugar, the song it tasted like was Rival - Down (ft. Philip Strand)

finally a Megumi chapter! this song was so just so him, made me rlly happy, Megumi's been creeping into my antagonists-dominated favs list

i forget to say it but thank you for all the kudos and i hope you enjoy :)

---

Gojo had told him “You’re always alone when you die,” had flicked him hard in the forehead and said, “‘Winning by dying’ and ‘winning even if you die’ are totally different, Megumi.”

Maybe they were totally different if you were the Six Eyes.

But Megumi was a possessor of the Ten Shadows Technique.

The Six Eyes made its possessor basically immortal. Mahoraga made the possessor of the Ten Shadows a kamikaze.

As a possessor of the Ten Shadows and the Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga, winning by dying and winning even if you die were exactly the same thing.

Megumi wasn’t the Six Eyes. He didn’t need to live forever. He didn’t need to be the strongest. Gojo said to surpass him, but Megumi didn’t give a fuck.

Let everyone else have their dick-measuring contests about strength and get their panties all in a bunch about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Megumi didn’t give a fuck about any of that.

He was just going to live true to himself, making arbitrary decisions based on whatever he wanted to do. He didn’t need to justify any of it.

He wanted to save his sister. He wanted to save Itadori. He didn’t particularly care about most. He didn’t particularly even want to live. He didn’t necessarily want to die, but the thought certainly didn’t bother him. He felt the most alive at those times, when there was nothing to lose and any second could be his last. Come at me, come on. Let’s see you do it.

Maybe everyone else was alone when they died. Even the Six Eyes would be alone when he died. But Megumi wouldn’t die alone. He was the possessor of the Ten Shadows Technique. The possessor of Divine General Mahoraga never died alone. The possessor of Divine General Mahoraga always died taking his foe down with him.

Megumi was the Ten Shadows, and if the only way out was down, then he was down.

Gojo, the Six Eyes, didn’t understand that, and never would.

For Gojo, the only way out was up, and he was up for it.

For Megumi, the only way out was down, and he was down for it.

Everyone was always being so dramatic about the dying alone thing, and it was all Megumi could do not to scoff at them. He was never dying alone. Mahoraga awaited at his fingertips for whenever he was going to be dying anyway.

If they didn’t want to die alone, then come at him, and then they could die with him.

Sometimes, he had the niggling suspicion that Gojo might eventually do so.

Maybe the person who always kept everyone an Infinity away really was the most afraid of dying alone, because it was so inevitable for him. Dying alone like he’d lived alone.

Dying with Megumi would be the only way that Gojo would ever die in company.

Gojo would be telling him all these things, trying to act all cool and trying to teach him, but sometimes Megumi just wanted to say Gojo, shut up already, stop play-acting and just come at me.

Chapter 25: Yuji & Sukuna, Yuji & Mahito: Someone Else

Notes:

wine was a pinot noir that came with amusing instructions and a remark about Mercury always being in retrograde, the song it tasted like was Rezz, Grabbitz - Someone Else

for some of these songs i write heavily inspired by the lyrics, but for some i go more just off of the vibe, and this one was definitely going more off of the vibe; inspiration from the lyrics but only rather creatively so

---

Yuji had never thought he’d see the day when he’d see himself as someone he could hate.

But when he wasn’t looking, he was someone else.

When he wasn’t looking, he was Sukuna.

So many people dead by Sukuna’s hand. By his hand. By Yuji’s.

He looked at himself in the mirror, and he looked like an angel. He knew that he did. But he was an angel sent from hell, because along with being him he was also someone else.

The smell he left on his pillowcase—was it his, or was it Sukuna’s?

In his soul, he looked at Sukuna; in Sukuna’s soul, he looked at Sukuna; and Sukuna had his face.

Sometimes Yuji thought he might not even know himself. How many lies had he told himself?

“You are me, and I am you!”—don’t make things even more complicated, Mahito. What, so Yuji was both Sukuna and Mahito?

Maybe he was.

But by whatever the name of that math property was, Yuji being Sukuna and Sukuna being Yuji being true while Yuji being Mahito while Mahito being Yuji was also true, would make Sukuna being Mahito and Mahito being Sukuna also true.

Don’t make things so complicated, Mahito.

Except, Yuji knew it was true, no matter how he wanted to deny it. Sukuna the King of Curses, and Mahito the most human of curses—and Yuji the most cursed of humans.

Were they not all the same? Each just a different side of the same triangle. Humans and curses and that liminal space in between; they filled all of those things, made up the sides of all those things, met up at the corners of all those things.

When Yuji wasn’t looking, he was someone else.

And so he hadn’t looked. He hadn’t looked, because he hadn’t wanted to look. He hadn’t wanted to see.

But now he could look at himself and not see his face. And that was okay with him. He could look at himself and see Sukuna; he could look at himself and see Mahito. That was okay.

He’d known since swallowing Sukuna’s finger and being told what it meant that he was going to die anyway. So he’d just kill all of them. He’d just kill all of him. The angel, the devil, and whatever it was that lay between.

Yuji looked in the mirror, saw the scars on his face and didn’t recognize himself.

Even with Mahito dead, even with Sukuna out of his body, he was still someone else.

When he hadn’t been looking, he’d become someone else.

Now part of him was dead, and another part of him he was trying to kill, and whatever was left of him after was either going to be him or Sukuna, and either way that part of him would be hating itself and cursing the other for what it had become when it hadn’t been looking, under the influence of someone else.

They weren’t themselves anymore. They were someone else.

They were each other.

“You are me, and I am you”—Mahito, humanity’s mirror, really had it right, after all.

You were your reflection, and your reflection was you, despite that two of you being completely reversed. You were the perfect opposite, but you were the exact same.

You were yourself, but you were someone else; but more disturbing still, you were someone else, but you were still yourself.

The hardest person to face in the end would always be yourself, realizing that you hadn’t even known yourself. A stranger in your own skin.

Was the stranger him, or was the stranger you? Who was the stranger stranger? The familiar foreign, or the foreign familiar? Déjà vu or vuja de? The uncanny, that inside-out outside-in Möbius strip that you couldn’t explain, couldn’t define, couldn’t draw the lines—

Mahito had had it right, after all.

You were your reverse reflection and yet that reflection was not you, and your reverse reflection was you and yet was not you; what you saw of yourself was not actually you; what others saw of you was not how you saw you; what you saw of yourself was not how others saw you; always, always, you were someone else when you thought you were yourself.

Yuji hated the reflections of himself he saw in the mirror.

So he vowed to kill them, even if it meant dying himself.

Notes:

not a fan of Yuji's character development in canon but there we go :')

i have no fucking idea what Gege is doing...

i like to try to put sense to the senselessness anyway

Chapter 26: Kenjaku: Bombe

Notes:

wine was a red blend with a fun bomb-inspired label, so ofc the song had to be Eisbrecher - Bombe

yes i love German fight me

that video has English translation tho :))

but if you want to see the lyrics better you can find the translation here

---

Kenjaku just wanted to make the world explode. Redeem it; wipe it out.

Such a boring world. Boring people going about their boring lives, and no matter the societal changes over hundreds of years, ultimately humans were always the same. And it got so very boring. This fundamental humanity that couldn’t be overcome, not even using curses.

That was why he wanted to merge them all with Tengen. He just wanted to create something new, something finally interesting forced beyond the confines of what anything human or curse could be.

So Kenjaku laid his bombs and listened to them tik-tok, counting down the seconds over years. Zen’in Toji pulled the trigger, just a klik-klak, but its recoil rebounded. Now all the pieces were falling into place, Tengen without a new vessel and Geto Suguru’s curse manipulator body into his hands, all the pieces falling so perfectly like it was meant to be, like humanity was meant to evolve in this way, by his hand.

He was a mad scientist, absolutely. Creating the largest and most phenomenal Frankenstein that could ever be conceived.

He wanted to watch them run for cover, run in zig-zag. He wanted to watch them lose, realize they would lose.

He was the hatred of the world, but they were the fist that was carrying him forward. Come, let them play some war! It had been so many years.

It had been so many years since there had been any war that had been fun.

He just wanted to watch the world explode, see it go up in flames and turn to ash before his eyes, become something finally unpredictable even to him who had seen everything humanity and curses had to offer and found all of it lacking.

He wanted to be the world’s downfall, and the new world’s dawn; he wanted to be the mad scientist who finally became god.

He wanted to change the world. Wasn’t that what it meant to be alive? To take what was in your head and unleash it upon reality, to make it real, to change the world for your having had the fortune or the curse to be born into it, to live in it?

Why bend to the world like a victim, when you could make the world bend to you? Why let your life be ruled, when you could be the one to rule life? Wasn’t that what it meant to be alive? To seize every opportunity that was so brave as to grace your fingertips?

Hundreds of years of simply existing, and Kenjaku just wanted to finally be alive.

Who could live for so long and be so dead? Waiting, hoping, yearning, never able to do anything, only surviving for the eventual opportunity that serendipity would have to grant him eventually.

And finally it had, with the reincarnation of Sukuna’s twin, with Zen’in Toji killing the Star Plasma Vessel and Geto Suguru going rogue and getting killed by his best friend Gojo Satoru. Everything fallen into place so perfectly; only Gojo Satoru in the way, unless Kenjaku could lock him in the Prison Realm since he was too immortal to die. Kenjaku didn’t need him dead, he only needed him out of the way—but with how perfectly everything had been falling into place, he had no doubt that this would, too.

And it did. How delightful. It was like the very world itself wanted him to succeed. Wanted all of his carefully laid bombs to blow. Tik-tok—it had only been a matter of time.

Klik-klak—what a wonderful sound: that sound of the beginning of change, that initiation, that impetus—how absolutely glorious.

For the first time, Kenjaku was drunk on life, instead of being numbed by it.

Ah, he hated this boring world.

So he’d wipe it out, make it explode, redeem it.

Make this boring world actually interesting.

Wasn’t that what it meant to be alive?

It had to be, because if not, then Kenjaku didn’t know what he’d been living all these long centuries of tedium for.

Chapter 27: Naoya & Toji: Lost Kitten

Notes:

wine was a cabernet sauvignon, the song it tasted like was Metric - Lost Kitten

---

Toji was a victim of the system, Naoya immediately realized it was so. The Zen’in clan wanted a power to rival the Six Eyes—always they said he, Naoya, was a genius, but he wasn’t the Ten Shadows—but they had it already, they had it in Toji-kun, but they gave it away. They eschewed it and degraded it and chased it away, because they couldn’t stand that someone with less cursed energy than them was so much stronger and more powerful than them.

Toji was a victim of the system, Naoya realized it was so, realized that despite his strength that rivaled the Six Eyes Toji was like a lost kitten on the doorstep with no place to go, but wanting a home and so he took all the abuse, swallowed all the blow.

The Zen’in clan wanted power to rival the Six Eyes, the had the power to rival the Six Eyes, but they kicked it away.

Toji would be leaving without Naoya. That Naoya knew. Toji would never be his.

But Toji had his eyes.

Toji had his eyes, and in the nighttime chasing after him Naoya was happy, trying to be silent as a kitten but inside he was howling at the moon.

Toji noticed him, of course, but it took him longer than it should, too caught up in his head, his dark thoughts.

But he noticed Naoya following him finally, walked over and picked him up by the back of his hakamashita like he was picking up a kitten by the scruff, leveled him with a stare and said, “I was lookin’ for a hooker, but I find you.”

Naoya smiled at him with fox eyes. “A lost kitten you can take home, too.”

Toji huffed and tossed him over his shoulder. “It’s your home; not mine.”

Toji was a victim of the system, Naoya realized it was so. Toji was the strongest, but he was still human. It hit Naoya where it hurt and he knew he was coming home to lose, but there was something about Toji he still held onto.

Toji’s strength, Toji’s power. Toji’s darkness; Toji’s humanity. Toji’s sublimity.

Toji was the strongest, but he was still just human, and he was a victim of the system. So although Toji was the strongest, he lied; so when he lied, Naoya covered it up. And although Toji was the strongest, he cried; so when he cried, Naoya covered it up. And although Toji was the strongest, he hid; so when he hid, Naoya covered it up. Toji was the strongest, but he came undone; so when he came undone, Naoya covered it up. Noaya was the Zen’in heir, and he could do things like that. It was easy for him to cover for Toji, since Toji was so hard for people to even see, and it was so easy for Naoya to draw everyone’s attention to him, infuriate and antagonize them so they couldn’t even think properly.

Toji had Naoya’s eyes, and so whenever Naoya saw him show weakness, he covered it up. Toji was the strongest, after all; he was just a victim of the system, and still as human as anyone. Just stronger. So much stronger. Strength and power to rival the Six Eyes.

He was so strong he lasted far longer under the abuse of the Zen’in clan than anyone else would’ve.

When Toji left, Naoya wasn’t even surprised. It hit him where it hurt, gave his heart a bruise that would clot with dead blood and eventually go rancid and make him sick in heart and head and soul, but when Toji disappeared, he covered that up, too.

People forgot about Toji before they could even realized he was gone. By the time anyone finally did, he was long gone.

When Naoya lied, and cried, and hid, and came undone, there was no one to cover it up, so he covered for himself, too. He was the Zen’in heir, so he could do things like that. Infuriate and antagonize everyone so they couldn’t even think properly, couldn’t even see.

They couldn’t even see.

They never had.

…

“You know, Toji-kun, you’re so strong you could literally do anything.”

“Mm.”

“You could do anything. So, what’s one thing you would never do?”

“…Kill you.”

“That’s kinda a shame. I mean, if you don’t, then someone or something else is going to have to.”

“Someone as crazy as you? Nothin’s gonna be killing ya but yerself, ya bugbear. Stop followin’ me around in the dark down sketchy alleys.”

“…But I want to. I want to walk beside you.”

“Ya shouldn’t.”

“You shouldn’t even exist. But here you are. And so here I am, too. Following you. Others can’t see you but you have my eyes, you know. If you don’t want them then gouge them out. Go on. If I don’t have the eyes to see you then I won’t be able to follow you.”

“Fuckin’ rug rat.”

“It’s your only option because I’m not going to be blindfolding myself.”

“I could fuckin’ tie ya to your bed.”

“Kinky.”

“Yer a fuckin’ kid!”

“Then don’t say weird things like that.”

“Brat!”

“Brat, rat, bugbear, call me some more names, just like everyone calls you. Just like with what they say, doesn’t mean any of it’s true.”

“The brat part is definitely true.”

“Nothing that they say about you is true.”

“…Fuck, kid. I really am a failure of a sorcerer.”

“They’re the failures of sorcerers for refusing to accept that you’re strong enough to destroy them and rival the Six Eyes. Isn’t the essence of being a sorcerer exorcising cursed spirits? With cursed tools, you’re better at that than any of them. And most of them rely on cursed tools themselves anyway.”

“I’m not a sorcerer.”

“But you’re still better than them. And you know it. Don’t deny it. They deny it enough for you. Don’t deny it for yourself. You’re a victim of the system, Toji. Don’t act like any of it’s your fault. It’s theirs.”

“…How fuckin’ old are ya again?”

“Nine, but I’m a genius. Everyone says so, even when they hate me. That should tell ya something.”

“Fuck, kid.”

“When I’m an adult you really can fuck me if you want to.”

“I told ya I was lookin’ for a hooker, not for you!”

“But instead of findin’ a hooker, you found me. Beeehh.”

“Fucker.”

“Close enough to a hooker, no?”

“Seriously, how the fuck old are you?!”

“Old enough to hear what grown-ups say, and also see what they blind themselves to.”

…

They couldn’t even see, they never had.

So it was so easy for Naoya to cover everything up.

He always covered everything up.

For Toji-kun, and for himself, too.

What people didn’t want to know, they wouldn’t ever know. What people wanted to believe, it was so easy to make them believe. They wanted to, after all. And so they would.

And so Naoya covered for Toji-kun, and he covered for himself, and nobody would ever know.

They didn’t want to. Honestly, they probably wouldn’t even have believed the truth if he’d waved it in front of their faces and even slapped them with it.

So it was so easy to cover everything up, and make them believe what they wanted to.

Toji didn’t exist and wasn’t even worth consideration, and Naoya was positively loathsome.

Just like that, Naoya covered up everything.

Covered up that Toji was just a lost man-eating tiger kitten, and Naoya himself was just a wolf howling for a moon he would never reach.

Toji would never be his; he only ever had Naoya’s eyes and Naoya’s ululation and Naoya’s panting breath and blood-dripping teeth as he dug into a world that denied him what he most esteemed.

Just a couple lost kittens taking all the abuse and swallowing all the blows because they wanted an accepting home.

And so the abused became the monsters that abused others, because fear begat fear and fear begat hatred and hatred begat more fear which begat more hatred, and in the end nobody would ever know what had ever been true.

…

“Why don’t you tell me, then, one thing you would never do? Being as blessed as you are and able to do anything you could possibly want to.”

“I’d never look away from you. As long as I can see you, I’ll be looking straight at you.”

“…You can’t.”

“And you aren’t supposed to be able to exist, but you here you are, existing. And so here I am, looking. Because I’m a fuckin’ genius and unlike everyone else I can see.”

“You’re certainly humble.”

“Dole that out as another one of my blessings.”

And then Toji was laughing, and because of that Naoya was laughing, too.

Ah, everything about Toji was addictive.

Everything.

Notes:

Beeehh was the closest onomatopoeia I could find for the Japanese expression of akanbe that Japanese facial gesture consisting of someone pulling down one's lower eyelid to expose the red underside towards someone, often accompanied by the person sticking their tongue out.

Chapter 28: Satoru & Mei Mei: 6 Inch [Heels]

Notes:

wine was a cabernet sauvignon, the song it made me think of was Beyoncé, The Weekend - 6 Inch

back in high school i used to dance and one summer session we had some choreography to this song and it was one of my favs

man but Mei Mei/Gojo Satoru wasn't something i even shipped before this drabble fic, but somehow staying with canon compliance it just works?? not as an actual romantic ship just like as friends with benefits but still

Gojo canonically considers her strong and respects her, and she's canonically amused by him, which honestly puts her as one of the very very few who isn't annoyed to hell by him

thank you for all the kudos!! as always, despite the fact that i usually forget to say it, i hope you enjoy this one :)

i just feel like they could have a sexual aromantic rlly good friendship where they both have an understanding of the other and respect each other

---

Wearing six inch heels, Mei Mei walked into the club with swinging hips like nobody’s business.

God damn, she murdered everybody and Satoru was her witness.

“I’m getting paid so let me handle this,” she said, spinning her ax around her like nobody’s business.

God damn, she exorcised every curse and Satoru was her witness.

She worked for the money, and she was stacking it everywhere that she went, commas and those decimals. She didn’t have to give it up, she was professional. Even when she’d already made enough, she’d never leave. Not when she was too smart to crave material things. She just wanted that money, money, money, because “In this world, money is power” and “In this world, money is freedom” and “This world is always trying to deny a woman both of those things. But if you have enough money, nobody’s going to be denying you anything.”

She worked for the money from the start to the finish. Didn’t mind the grind or the sleepless nights, she’d fight and she’d sweat just to stack that paper up, but wouldn’t lift a single finger for free.

Holding a six foot ax, Mei Mei walked onto the scene with swinging hips like nobody’s business.

God damn, she exorcised every curse and Satoru was her witness.

“You’re paying me so let me handle this,” she said, pushing him down and straddling him like nobody’s business.

God damn, her prices seemed exorbitant but she was worth every dollar and worth every minute.

She worked for the money, and she was a professional. She worked for the money from the start to the finish, and even when she’d made enough she’d never leave. As long as there was money to be had, she didn’t give up anything. She’d never lift a finger for free, but for the money, money, money, she’d fight and sweat and grind and spend sleepless nights, wearing six inch heels and a holding a six foot ax and swinging her hips like nobody’s business.

God damn, she was worth every dollar and worth every minute, and Satoru was her witness.

She’d never lift a finger for free, but for the money, money, money she didn’t mind the grind and she’d never leave.

With her Bird Strike, she’d come closer to killing him than anyone except Zen’in Toji.

From her Bird Strike, Satoru was the only one to ever survive.

Mei Mei worked for the money, and her prices seemed exorbitant but she was worth every dollar and worth every minute.

Stars in her eyes, she fought for the power that only hard work and cold money could give her.

She worked for the money from the start to the finish, and even when she’d made enough she’d never leave. As long as there was money to be had, she didn’t give up anything.

And so she’d always be coming back to Satoru, because he had more money on his card and more respect for her than anybody.

So no matter where she went for the money, she’d always be coming back to him.

Chapter 29: Naoya & Toji: Falling Down

Notes:

i did that thing again where i collected chapters without posting them... need to catch up haha

this chapter was a Malbec, the song that first came to mind was Danell Arma - Falling Down, but it didn't feel quite right... so i went and found another song that fit better (next chapter) but then i couldn't think of anything to write to that while sober, so i wrote to this one first because it was easier... by the time i finished this one i was drunk enough to write to the other song haha, so that's the next chapter and why i'm posting them together

admittedly, Toji, Gojo and Naoya are my main fav jjk characters, and i've written so much with them at this point that anything in regards to them will much more be based off my headcanons from my writing of them than canon, chapters with other characters will be closer to canon, i'm just letting you know, with these three my takes are the most liberal and yeah the most configuring to my other fics i've written with them

chapters with other characters will truly be closer to canon i hope!! i just can't with these three :') i've adopted/adapted them too much lol, sorry♡

---

Naoya and Toji had both always liked to spend their time outside.

It was a different story when it was raining. They’d stay inside, then, watching the rain as it was falling down.

Shit just wasn’t the same with Toji gone. Naoya would be watching the rain as it was falling down, knew that somewhere out there there was sunlight on Toji’s skin while he wasn’t around.

They said that eyes were the windows to the soul. The rain was falling down the windows, just kept falling. Maybe the windows were the eyes of his soul because those on Naoya’s face were dry. He wasn’t going to cry. He just using his eyes to watch the rain as it was falling down, and when he stepped outside he could feel the water trickling down his cheeks. And the water just kept falling, falling. But somewhere out there, while he wasn’t around, there was sunlight on Toji’s skin.

Loving Toji was like walking on a bed of nails. Blood dripping from his feat with every step. But Naoya just kept walking, walking. Watching the rain as it just kept falling, falling.

Shit just wasn’t the same with Toji gone. He was watching the rain as it was falling down alone, now. No Toji there warm to curl up on and listen to his slow heart and it’s heavy bass beat underlying the rain’s fast erratic pitter-pattering. But he liked to look out the window trickling with streams of water like tears and think that Toji no longer being there meant that Toji no longer had to share the same gloomy world, stuck inside an estate-shaped box watching the rain as it was falling down. That somewhere out there, there Toji was walking outside with sunlight on his skin. That made things easier.

Until Toji was killed by Gojo Satoru, and then Naoya was watching the windows run with rainwater like streams of tears knowing that Toji was already in the ground. No more sunlight on Toji’s skin while he wasn’t around.

Loving Toji was like walking on a bed of nails, blood from his feet dripping with every step, but Naoya just kept on walking, like the rain just kept on falling down.

Chapter 30: Naoya & Satoru, Naoya & Toji: Empty

Notes:

as i said in the previous chapter, for this chapter the wine was the same Malbec, but this this is the song that felt closer to the taste: Serhat Durmus - Empty but which i had to be a little more drunk to write to lol

again, with these three characters... i'm much more biased to my own headcanons than with other characters haha, especially in regards to these three in relation to each other

please forgive me♡

---

The sunlight was bright, and then it got dark again. It made sense why Satoru wore those opaque black glasses. What did he need light for? He had the Six Eyes.

Light wasn’t always one’s friend.

So blindingly bright, and then it always got dark again. It made sense to choose the darkness.

It made sense why Satoru blindfolded himself. What did he need the light for? He had the Six Eyes.

If Naoya could see without needing light, he would blindfold himself, too.

But as it was, he needed the light, because he couldn’t see when it was dark. The darkness closed in and filled his mind till it was like he was an isolated grotesque thing in its infinity, its eternity. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t see; he couldn’t see why everyone else couldn’t see.

Toji may have had zero cursed energy, but the sunlight had still graced his skin. It wasn’t that he wasn’t visible; it was that he wasn’t noticeable.

But the emptiness of his being had always drawn Naoya in.

Satoru was empty in a different way. But he had always drawn Naoya in, too.

He couldn’t hate Satoru for killing Toji anymore than he could have hated Toji for killing Satoru. How could he ever hate either of them?

They were all that made it worth living in this dark world. So dark, because nobody could see! Nobody! For Naoya, there was so much light on everything it was blinding, and he was alone in the dark with the only eye’s light shining. God, he was a monster. An absolutely unreal and eldritch creature. Someone like him shouldn’t be able to exist.

Someone with a body like Toji’s shouldn’t have been able to exist; someone with a mind like Naoya’s shouldn’t be able to exist. God, he was a monster! The only one who could see the truth of the world among everyone else who was blind and delusional—he was a monster!

Among crazies, the sane person was the crazy one, the wrong one. Even though he was the one who was right.

Among morons, the genius person was the crazy one, the wrong one. Even though he was the one who was right.

Naoya was the only one with the eyes to see—he was a monster! An absolute freak! Total scum! Hate him!

Satoru was the only one who maybe also saw, but he blindfolded himself so he didn’t have to. Naoya didn’t really blame him.

It was easier to get along with crazies if you made yourself crazy like they, easier to get along with morons if you acted moronic like they. And Satoru just didn’t want to be alone. So it was hard to blame him.

Naoya didn’t have the Six Eyes, so he couldn’t blind himself and still see. So he had to keep his eyes open, had to see everything the light shone upon, had to be that monster and that freak.

The problem wasn’t him, it was everyone else.

But the way the world worked was determined by the majority.

And so the problem wasn’t them, it was him.

That was just the way the world worked.

But he was genius enough to hide half of it, callous enough to not care about the rest. He didn’t need to not be alone. He wasn’t Gojo Satoru, who had never had anyone.

He was Zen’in Naoya, who had had Toji and then lost him.

The hardest part was coming down empty.

He was waking up wasted, just like his dad. Go figure. He had to have gotten all these particular genes from somewhere.

The hardest part was coming down empty, knowing you’d never have anything.

But Naoya knew that he’d never have anything again, so he didn’t even bother trying, while Satoru knew that he’d never have anything ever, and so he was always trying.

Hunger was worse after knowing the feeling of fulfillment. Someone like Satoru who’d always been hungry could always seek, but someone like Naoya who knew the feeling of fulfillment could only mourn, cry and then cry out, lie and then lie awake, internally begging to be taken away before he could feel his mistake.

He’d been just a kid back then, and there wasn’t much he could have done. But still he wanted to drown his head in the waves, beg Satoru, “If you have something to say, please, just say it,” because Toji wasn’t there to say anything anymore, and so Satoru was the only one he could cling to when it got dark and he was all alone because the eternal light that fell over everything was his greatest gift but it wasn’t always his friend.

Toji was gone so it was Satoru who saved him when it got dark, when he came down empty, when he woke up wasted, when he wanted to drown and wanted to die—Satoru still being there gave him someone to still strive to stand beside.

“If you have something to say, please, just say it,”—but Satoru never said anything.

The hardest part was coming down empty.

But Naoya was used to it.

That’s what he got for being the monster, the freak, too sane to be human and too crazy to exist.

Nobody wanted to see just how worthless and meaningless they were.

But Naoya saw it, he saw it.

All of them, and himself, too—

Everyone except for Toji, and Satoru.

No matter what, he wanted to be able to stand by their sides. He’d die for it.

He’d come back as a vengeful ghost for it.

Just to sidle up and say, with a smirk, “Hey, I’m not going to let you be alone here, you baka.”

God, he’d die and he’d die and he’d die, just to be able to live for them.

It sucked so fucking bad to be alone.

Toji unseen, and Satoru unseeing—god, Naoya had just wanted to remedy both of those things.

I see you; Now see me.

That was all that he’d wanted to say, but couldn’t, and had choked to death on.

God, he’d always been such a fucking freak. Someone like him shouldn’t have ever existed.

And yet he had, just like had Toji-kun.

And just like with Toji-kun, no one would remember but Satoru.

So when Satoru died, so did all three of them, finally, for good.

Nobody else would ever know.

But nobody else needed to know.

They were all blind and wouldn’t ever have seen anything, anyway.

Let them all drown in the dark thinking they knew light, when all they knew was the delusion of their minds, not realizing that they were more monstrous than any of the monsters they ostracized.

You are what you eat and you corrode with all the secrets you keep—

None of them would ever realize, none would ever understand.

Toji, and Satoru, and Naoya—they were all, as monstrous as they were, just human. Only just a little different. Just enough to make them monsters, incomprehensible—but not enough to make them exempt from human emotions.

Nobody, no matter how fucked up, wants to be truly alone. Not even the truly strong.

Chapter 31: Satoru: Dollhouse

Notes:

this wine was a sauvignon blanc but i don’t think i’ve ever had a sauvignon blanc that was this sweet wtf

the song it reminded me of was Melanie Martinez - Dollhouse

---

You couldn’t hide anything from Satoru’s Six Eyes.

“I see things that nobody else sees.”

But they never realized what that meant.

Everything that adults tried to hide from children, he’d always been able to see.

Everything that everyone tried to hide from others, he could always see.

The flasks, the knives, the injuries, the sluts, the lust, the hatred, the fear, the satisfaction.

The Gojos were aloof, powerful, perfect.

Only on the surface.

Within, things couldn’t be any more different.

“I see things that nobody else sees.”

That’s why they liked it that he was never there.

Plastic, plastic, a perfect cold doll with a perfect cold doll face. That was all he’d been, back then, when he’d still been living there.

The Gojos were a perfect clan.

Only on the surface.

Within, they couldn’t be more different.

And so on the surface, he’d been perfect, too.

But within, he couldn’t be more different.

Plastic, plastic, a perfect lifelike doll with a perfect lifelike face. That was all he was, starting at Tokyo Jujutsu High, and after. Faking it till he made it, but he never made it. Faking it, faking it, posing and smiling like celebrities before paparazzi.

After all, he was the Six Eyes. He was the sorcerer world’s biggest star. And he was a Gojo, the most Gojo of them all.

All fucked up within, but so perfect on the surface. And just like nobody saw everything else, they’d never see him.

“I see things that nobody else sees.”

They never understood what that meant.

All that he saw when he looked at them,

and all that he saw when he looked in the mirror.

People could cover up their bodies and fake their expressions, but they couldn’t hide or fake their cursed energy.

Not from Satoru’s Six Eyes.

“I see things that nobody else sees.”

“I see things that nobody else sees.”

“I see things that nobody else sees.”

But when nobody else could see and you were the only one who could, you were the one who was crazy, and no one would ever listen.

God, just look at their cursed energy glisten.

Even with his eyes closed, even if they were behind him, even if they were at a distance, he could always see them.

He could always see.

They thought he didn’t see because they didn’t (couldn’t) touch him.

But he didn’t need to feel to see it.

Absolutely numb, all plastic; but omniscient.

At best and at worst, he was your artificial God.

Not human, only faking it.

“I see things that nobody else sees.”

He’d never be free from it.

He didn’t just have the Six Eyes; he was them.

Chapter 32: Sukuna: Stay Dead

Notes:

the wine was a cabernet sauvignon titled "The Introvert", the song it tasted like was Aviators - Stay Dead
which hilariously is actually a Legend of Zelda song for the evil king Ganon, and while i don't know most of the games that Aviators writes for i do know LoZ, anyways makes sense that it works for the king of curses too haha

Chapter Note: this was written when the most recent chapter of the manga was chapter 262, i had no information about what comes after the start of Gojo!Yuta's fight with Sukuna

---

Why would Sukuna die when he could turn himself into cursed objects and live again?

Just killing time until he died—killing time and even killing death itself, because he would not stay dead.

Was that what life was?

Give it to me again.

The sorcerers of whatever age could bury him, but he would not stay dead. He’d spread like a plague. He had twenty fingers, after all. Twice more than anyone. Twice so many fingers and hands, twice so many eyes, twice so many mouths. All the better to touch you with, all the better the better to see you with, all the better to eat you with.

Only the cowardly, the weak and the sated wanted to die. The strong, the brave, the hungry, they would always choose life.

So many sorcerers threw themselves against him, choosing death.

The sorcerers of his age were a disappointment; but maybe the sorcerers of the future would be stronger.

And then he revived only to hear that the era in which he’d lived had been the Golden Age of Jujutsu, and sorcerers had only gone downhill from there.

How disappointing. How so incredibly disappointing and uninteresting.

Gojo Satoru he had hope in. Gojo Satoru, who had apparently cheated death once, claimed he was the strongest and he would definitely win.

But even Gojo Satoru succumbed to death at Sukuna’s hand, and stayed dead. He didn’t have the will to live again.

Just like Megumi.

Only Okkotsu Yuta had the will to life. Even using Kenjaku’s technique to take Gojo Satoru’s body for his own, just to not stay dead.

Sukuna wouldn’t have expected it of him. Okkotsu Yuta was the first to exceed his expectations.

Aside from him, everybody else failed to be interesting. Gojo Satoru had been strong; he had not been interesting.

And then there was Itadori Yuji, who didn’t have a single interesting bone in his body.

Of all the people Sukuna could have been reincarnated into, it just had to be someone who not only could suppress him but was also so boring he could die. He quite nearly bored Sukuna to death.

Forget all the other sufferings of life. Pain, loneliness, anger, hatred—none of that had anything on boredom.

Sukuna would have died with Yuji, too. He would have let that small portion of him die just to be free of the brat, knowing that there was so much more of him out there.

If not for Megumi.

Megumi, Megumi.

Sukuna had placed all the betting chips he had on him, and it had payed off.

Because using Megumi’s body had made defeating Gojo Satoru so easy.

Easy, like it should be.

Because nobody had anything on him. They never had. And maybe they never would.

Sukuna wouldn’t forget Gojo Satoru for as long as he lived.

But Okkotsu Yuta was the one who refused to stay dead. And he had Gojo Satoru’s superior body and abilities, now. Fused with power, strong of will.

Sukuna liked the look in Okkotsu Yuta’s eyes. It was a determination more intelligent and admirable than Itadori Yuji who flaunted danger like his head was empty.

Itadori Yuji was determined to live in order to kill.

Okkotsu Yuta was determined to kill in order to live.

Itadori Yuji was living to choose death, but Okkotsu Yuta was living to choose life.

It was such a different look on Okkotsu Yuta than on Itadori Yuji. Itadori Yuji fighting him out of hate and wanting him dead, wanting to kill the monster; Okkotsu Yuta fighting him to protect, wanting his friends to live, willing to become a monster to that end.

Itadori Yuji thought he was so humane, and didn’t realize the monster he’d become, so boring; Okkotsu Yuta thought himself a monster, and didn’t realize how human he was, how interesting.

When you fought with monsters, you inevitably became a monster yourself. But the intelligent made the decision to become a monster consciously; only the stupid kidded themselves that they had not become not just the same, but even worse.

Sukuna had been known as The Dishonored One, which was hilarious. As if he’d ever had any honor in the first place. He’d devoured his twin before he’d even been born.

He rejected his fate. Both to live as it dictated, and die as it dictated. He rejected all of that.

He would live as he willed, and die as he willed.

How unfortunate, that there just was never anyone interesting enough.

Never anyone interesting enough to kill him.

So he’d just continue to kill the time until then. Continue to kill the time and kill his own death until someone was interesting enough to make it so he could only stay dead.

Because whenever there was the slightest chance to life, he would take it. Just like Kenjaku had.

Because ironically, they had more hope than anyone.

More hope than anyone that sorcerers could become something actually interesting. Even though they’d only ever been let down. But still they would not stay dead.

Not until something finally made them. Until then, they would just keep coming back.

Was that what life was?

Give it to me again.

Their moves had always worked slow. They’d imparted their presences since centuries ago, and they would not disappear.

After all, they had long watched humanity and sorcerers and learned: there was no cure for fear.

This new world hadn’t expected them.

Ha, as if tides didn’t turn.

Go ahead and bury him.

Go ahead and hold him down.

Go ahead and take his breath.

He’d always just thrive instead.

Now, maybe they would learn.

Like the chilling of night first hitting them, they’d know he was there.

They could cheat his game, break his stride, but they’d still be seeing him again.

God, why wouldn’t Itadori Yuji just stay dead?

He wasn’t even brave, or strong, or hungry.

He was just full of hatred.

Sukuna had dealt with so, so many of those.

Just not any of those with whom he’d shared a body, shared a resonance of soul.

Itadori Yuji hated Sukuna—but he also hated himself.

That was why he wouldn’t stay dead. Not because he was choosing life; but because he was punishing himself by not choosing death.

What a boring person.

Okkotsu Yuta was so much more interesting. Killing Kenjaku because he hadn’t wanted his teacher to have to kill his best friend again; taking Gojo Satoru’s body because he didn’t want Gojo Satoru to be the only monster.

Okkotsu Yuta chose life in order to protect.

So Sukuna had hope that, unlike Gojo Satoru, Okkotsu Yuta wouldn’t stay dead.

He had hope that Okkotsu Yuta would show him something actually interesting.

In the end, humans, sorcerers, always failed for the same reason:

There was no cure for fear.

Is that what life is?

Give it to me again.

Anyone who’d had enough, was tired of it or satisfied with what they’d had, would let themselves die. Gojo Satoru, Fushiguro Megumi. Itadori Yuji. They were all like that.

Only the truly hungry and insatiable would come back for more.

For as long as they were too weak to kill him for good, Sukuna would live again, always desiring for more.

Okkotsu Yuta had that same look, a look that looked even better in Gojo Satoru’s Six Eyes.

Sukuna liked it.

Why don’t you see if you can satisfy me enough to make me stay dead, like you apparently did for Kenjaku.

Kenjaku wouldn’t ever have died if he hadn’t been in someway satisfied.

But Sukuna was still so unsatisfied and starving for something that no one had given him.

Until someone finally gave it to him, he would not stay dead.

He would just keep coming back, hoping for more.

Was that all that life was?

Give it to me again.

Notes:

Muth aber ist der beste Todtschläger, Muth, der angreift: der schlägt noch den Tod todt, denn er spricht: „War das das Leben? Wohlan! Noch Ein Mal!“
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)

Courage is the best death-defeater, courage that strikes: that strikes even Death dead, because it speaks: “Was that what Life was? Well then! Once again!”

“Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse (Beyond Good and Evil)

Whoever battles monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster himself. And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

---

yeah don't mind me casually referencing Nietzsche in my writing while drunk lol. Nietzsche's legit my favorite author and "Also sprach Zarathustra" (yes, in the original German) is my favorite book... says far too much about me and my writing haha. could you tell i rlly rlly like philosophy? and psychology. hehe.

Chapter 33: Naoya & Toji: Summer Never Ends

Notes:

lmao i am having the worst fucking day. you know those days when just everything seems to go horribly hilariously wrong like your life's become a goddamn comedy? yeah, it's one of those days. should there be any audience of my life they should be laughing their asses off rn.

so have another chapter simply bc i do not know what to do with myself lol today suckss. but maybe these chapters can make the day a little tiny bit better for someone? maybe...

this wine was a sauvignon blanc, my irl who also had some said it tasted "bright". it did.

the song it reminded me of was PBH & Jack X Hannah Boleyn - Summer Never Ends

---

Summer was the worst season for most sorcerers. They hated it, because of all the curses and all the work. So much pain and exhaustion and so little sleep. So much stress.

Summer was Naoya’s favorite season, because it reminded him of Toji in all his glory.

Toji destroying curses like it was the most beautiful thing.

And that was what Naoya aimed to be.

Destroyer of curses like it was the most beautiful thing.

For most sorcerers, winter was the best season. They loved it, so few curses and so much time to themselves. So much rest and so little work. So much vacation.

For Naoya, winter was the worst season, because it reminded him how Toji was gone from the world.

And Naoya was the only person in the world to celebrate his birthday.

Toji’s birthday was dead in the middle of winter, at the death of one year, the birth of another. The most terrifying and amazing moment that anyone could conceive or consider. The end of an epoch, the beginning of a new.

Toji had been the most glorious being to ever exist.

And the entire world went on without him, like he hadn’t ever existed, like Naoya was the only one who had seen him and how incredible he was.

Because Naoya was the only one, aside from maybe Satoru.

Winter never ended, with Toji gone and dead. Everything cold, everything still, everything so boring he could stab himself in the head.

His world was so completely opposite from everyone else’s.

When Toji had been there, summer had never ended, every single day perfect blue, feeling like it was too good to be true. Everything so bright, so warm as Naoya lay his head on Toji’s shoulder and Toji wrapped an arm around him to pull him closer, smelling of curses and sweat and complacent victory: true strength, powerful enough to kill you and keep you so dead you couldn’t ever conceive of having lived.

Summer was the sorcerer world’s most hated month, but Naoya’s ghost of a dream come true.

Maybe it was just like Toji had been the sorcerer world’s suppressed nightmare, but Naoya’s realized castles in the sky.

Toji was too good to be true. Too unreal to be true, couldn’t even be seen.

Summer had never ended, while Toji had lived and been there for Naoya to look up to.

Now the season that never ended was winter, winter, howling raging winds with no leaves left on the trees to blow.

Naoya had known, though. He’d seen the sunset in Toji’s eyes. That there was such a sadness hiding, chasing the darkness into light.

The way that Toji, for him, had just kept on, kept on smiling.

Only to finally leave so Naoya wouldn’t have to see him cry.

Dancing, dancing under burning skies—that had been Toji when he fought. And when he stopped—annihilation in his eyes, cold and dark as winter, a hell to wander forever in.

When Toji went, he went so easy. So much easier than he had stayed. He ghosted away like a dream on pretty lights, the sparkles of fireworks dissipating to haunting dirty smoke. Every fear of Naoya’s he’d washed away moved in closer, then, like the tide, threatening to rise up over Naoya’s head where he was chained to that rock: the Zen’in heir, sorcerer genius, fated to succeed his father as the Zen’in clan head.

Every other sorcerer’s dream—oh, they hated him, but they’d die to be him—but it was his torture chamber, like his warm cloudless summer of endless possibilities was to them and thing to be denied, quietly destroyed by refusing to even acknowledge its existence, made unreal by not allowing it to be seen, made dead by not allowing it to be alive.

They weren’t strong enough to kill Toji. So they ignored him completely, and denied him existence that way.

To exist was to be seen, and Toji never was.

Only by Naoya. And, perhaps, Satoru.

But if Satoru had seen him, he’d seen him like one saw their own death.

Naoya, looking at Toji, had seen the glory of life itself. Defiance of all rules, transcendence beyond all expectation, the serendipity of existence, the beauty and wonder of chaos that made all things possible, the breaking of all binds and chains, the growing of wings to leave the ground and all bound by it behind.

Toji flew away like a bird into summer skies, leaving Naoya chained on the cold hard ground, to that stone, just another sacrificial cog to a world he hated.

More than anything, Naoya wanted the wings to take to the skies, so he could exist by Toji’s side, in that realm where he defied all rules, transcended beyond all expectation, became something inexplicable and incredible,

just wanted to keep Toji company there, so Toji wouldn’t think those burning heavens were hell.

Notes:

and now allow me to impart my favorite haiku of all time

“Over the Wintry” by Natsume Sōseki

Over the wintry
Forest, winds howl in rage
With no leaves to blow.

gives me shivers

Chapter 34: Toji: switchblade

Notes:

so my funny story from yesterday is that one of the "how the fuck did i manage to fail like this" things that happened to me was my brain glitched and i forgot my phone passcode and could not get into my phone, i tried and failed so many times that after each time my phone made me wait 30 seconds before trying again bc it thought i was like someone else trying to break into my phone lol. but noooo, i just completely forgot the passcode. or rather, what i figured out later, was that i mixed up part of my passcode with part of the phone passcode of one of my irls whose passcode i accidentally memorized bc it's so much simpler than mine. anyways, at like 2am after some critical thinking and problem-solving i finally figured out my phone passcode and so can get into my phone again. hilarious.

onwards and upwards! or, downwards...

wine for this piece was a red wine blend, the note i wrote for it was "gawd it’s so sharp"

the song it tasted like was Qoiet, ghoolwrld, Kobenz - switchblade

---

Toji went off like a switchblade: one moment he was safe, dull, all hilt and no blade, all hidden and concealed and locked away; a split-second later he was unleashed in his full form, sharp and beautiful and wickedly deadly.

Killing was a game he played for pleasure. If someone had a bone to pick, he could cut as deep as they needed. Switch it up like a switchblade: one moment he’d be watching your blood splatter in the air with a grin on his scarred lips, dodging the red like raindrops not to get it on his tee, the next he’d have your bitch on her knees, his dick in her orifices as she trembled for more with her toes curling like his smirk.

Toji was used to his physical prowess being an ace in all situations.

He may have gotten too complacent, thinking he could never die.

But if you were gonna bury him, you’d better bury him triple six feet deep. Didn’t matter if he was ashes; he’d come back from the grave, just watch him.

His body was special.

A killing machine and a sex machine; he didn’t know how to actually live any more than he knew how to actually die.

Still, he stabbed himself in the head just to try. ‘Cause if he didn’t, he’d kill his own kid.

That was just the kind of monster that he was.

Feeling hella sick, probably from the sleep underneath, but you’d never see it on his face.

(Except maybe in his death gaze, if you were Zen’in Naoya.)

If a death god like Gojo Satoru asked him for his name, he wouldn’t bother to say it. He’d just fucking sign the page.

That was how sure he was that he’d never die.

Toji was like a switchblade: one moment he was flipped off, the next moment he was flipped on, and those states, while coexistent, were not at all the same.

A killing machine, a sex machine; and then sometimes he was human, gambling all his money away because he didn’t have anything else to do with it, or holding his little cousin on his knee and trying not to kiss his cheek just to see his cute little face heat.

Sometimes he was just human.

The rest of the time, he was the sluttiest of thots and a killer so competent he was known as the Sorcerer Killer.

He hadn’t thought he was even alive enough to die.

But Gojo Satoru proved him wrong.

Ah, so this is what I was, after all.

Just a man dying on his feet, the last words on his lips being of the kid he’d abandoned because he didn’t know how to not be deadly like a switchblade.

That kid was better off without him.

That was what he’d thought, when he’d left his kid behind, and what he’d thought again when he stabbed himself in the head.

Everyone in this world was better off without him.

(Except, maybe, Zen’in Naoya. But Toji hadn’t realized that what had been the case when Nao was just a kid would remain the case even as he grew older, and became a broken switchblade that couldn’t ever sheathe.)

Notes:

(obligatory TojiNao included as always, i can't help myself with these two haha)

Chapter 35: Yuki: Lioness

Notes:

wine was a chardonnay, which is indisputably my least favorite wine variety, but i still drink it sometimes bc it does have a certain vibe to it that other whites don't

the song it tasted like was Swedish House Mafia (feat. Niki & The Dove) - Lioness

so, i'm part of an anime and gaming group in my area, i'm not super active in it, but the other month i did go to a picnic meet-up event with them and i met this older guy who works for Crunchyroll and part of what he does is marketing the anime for people to watch, doing things like writing the summaries that you read on there, and he told me that the way you do it is to treat every anime like it's someone out there's favorite. because it is. no matter how cliche, no matter if it's a rip-off of things that have been done so many times before, you treat the anime like someone out there loves it. and i rlly liked that, bc that's similar to my approach to characters. no matter if i don't like them and don't care about them, when i write them, i treat them like i like them.

i am far from a fan of Yuki's character. but i wrote her hoping to do justice to her character for those who do like her, and, maybe, for those who don't, to make them like her a little more than they did before reading.

---

Yuki was so done with the sorcerer world, she was furious.

Tengen trained her as a Star Plasma Vessel to take her body. But she could hear the voices of the previous Star Plasma Vessels in Tengen, all those young girl’s voices. Tengen didn’t know, but she could.

Why was it always young girls who were Star Plasma Vessels compatible with Tengen, huh?

Because, for all they presented as male, Tengen was female. If Tengen were truly male, then the Star Plasma Vessels compatible with them would be male. But no, Tengen was female, taking over young girls’ bodies for her own and warping them to seem male.

Yuki knew why she did it. She did it because the sorcerer world was male-dominated and female sorcerers weren’t respected. To be respected as the top power upholding the barriers, Tengen—and that assuredly wasn’t her real name—had to present as male.

In Yuki’s opinion, that only made it worse. Tengen wasn’t a male taking advantage of females; Tengen was a female taking advantage of males’ abilities to take advantage of females.

Yuki hated it.

Tengen trained her as a Star Plasma Vessel to take her body. But she was too powerful. Tengen couldn’t take her body and erase her if she didn’t give herself up willingly. And she wouldn’t.

She hated the way this world was. Sorcerers and cursed spirits and cursed energy. Why couldn’t it all just be eradicated, so there was no need for it anymore? No more need to erase the minds of and subjugate the bodies of young girls just to uphold the barriers around the Jujutsu schools so primarily male sorcerers could defend a non-sorcerer society that was the reason for curses in the first place?

But males most always had this urge and need to ‘protect’ women and children, as their duty, didn’t they? Honestly, Yuki didn’t hate that. She liked men like that. Honest, muddy men who weren’t charismatic but still did their best. What she hated most were men who used their smoothness and suaveness to manipulate and take advantage.

Men like Kenjaku, and men like the man that Tengen acted as.

Yuki wasn’t going to play into the world. She was a special-grade sorcerer with Star Rage and Garuda, and she was unstoppable. She was a lioness, the power, the hunter.

Paint her black and golden, they could never keep her down.

She would do what she wanted to. Live how she wanted to. Work to improve the world the way she wanted to.

And Tengen never tried to stop her, because Tengen knew to fear the lioness.

And there would always be another Star Plasma Vessel.

It made Yuki’s fists clench. She rolled her shoulders, took a breath to relax and laughed it off.

She might be a special-grade, but like every sorcerer, she was just a man. The fact that she was a woman didn’t matter, she was just a human just the same. Even with Star Rage and Garuda, her power was limited. Even the Six Eyes’ power was limited. He, too, despite being the strongest, was just a man. Just like she was.

All lionesses were lions but not all lions were lionesses. That was the truth of the world.

Every woman was a man but not every man was a woman.

But still, for all of them with enough cursed energy and a technique, whether male or female, they were all just sorcerers.

That was why, even though she had the power to kill Tengen, she didn’t, she couldn’t. Because she knew that Tengen was just a woman like her, doing the best that she could, even if Yuki personally found her methods questionable. Still, she herself couldn’t think of any better alternatives, except to try to eradicate cursed spirits from this world.

She felt for Tengen. She did. But she also felt for all the Star Plasma Vessels who Tengen had absorbed.

She just wanted to create a better world. And with her power, becoming Tengen’s newest vessel was not the way to do so.

She had Star Rage, and Garuda, and she was more powerful than anyone aside from Gojo Satoru. Obviously, she was in a position to do more to improve the world than pretty much anyone else could.

Yeah, she was a woman. What was your type? Because she was a lioness.

And if she wasn’t your type, well, you’d better stay out of her way, because you could never keep her down. She was so fucking done, and she smiled but she was furious.

Everything you did would just feed the lioness. And she was a special-grade; like all the others, although they were all male and she the only female, she just like they loved the taste of blood on her breath.

Each one of them was just a man, and so was she. She was just also a woman as well.

She was exactly what they were, but even more than what they were.

She liked men that were muddy, that were uncharismatic but hard-working, that did what they meant. She hated men that were smooth and suave and manipulated others.

Likewise, she like women that were muddy, that were uncharismatic but hard-working, that did what they meant, and hated women that were were smooth and suave and manipulated others.

Honestly, gender didn’t matter at all. It was integrity of soul that mattered.

That was why she always asked, whether they were male or female, What’s your type? She didn’t care if guys were into girls or guys, or if girls were into guys or girls, she just wanted to know their type. The kind of person they were attracted to. Gender didn’t matter. What mattered was personality, soul, looks. And all those things were connected. So the secret killer of asking What’s your type? was that the answer would tell you what the person—male or female, it didn’t matter—was attracted to, which would tell you what they valued, which would tell you who they were. Because what someone valued in others always reflected their core.

And what Yuki had learned was this: people will lie to you about most things, but they won’t lie to you about what they’re attracted to.

Because they never realized that it gave them completely away.

Gender didn’t matter. Only soul did.

She hated that she couldn’t kill Tengen. She hated that she’d die to protect them.

But still she did, anyway, because that was just the kind of person she was.

She was a lioness, and she would always fight to protect her pride.

Notes:

double-meaning there with the homonym the end interpret it how you want hehe

edit: my friend read this piece wand was confused about the "She might be a special-grade, but like every sorcerer, she was just a man. / Every woman was a man but not every man was a woman." part. this was a play on how in english, 'man' is part of both [wo]man and [hu]man, and also the way 'man' is sometimes used to refer to mankind in general, like "the history of man[kind]', mankind isn't referring to just men lol it's referring to humans. "Every woman was a man but not every man was a woman." is like "every square is a rectangle but not every rectangle is a square." every woman is a human but not every human is a woman

and admittedly for "she was just a man." i was thinking about the french song "Je suis un homme" (I Am a Man) sung by a woman

Chapter 36: Toji, Mahito, Naoya, Kenjaku, Sukuna: Villain

Notes:

if you didn't see it and were confused about the "like every sorcerer, she was just a man. / Every woman was a man but not every man was a woman." part of the last chapter, i added some explanation to the ending author note

in any case, with this chapter we're back to my fav characters :)) sans Gojo, bc Gojo's my only fav jjk character who isn't an antagonist lmao. which should tell you something about Gojo... jkjkjk. maybe. he's pretty sus lol.

in any case! this wine was a cabernet sauvignon titled "Replica" and the song it tasted like was K/DA - VILLAIN 「Male Cover」【ft. ‪@Hyurno‬ ‪@Kuraiinu‬ ‪@SocialRepose‬ & ‪@willstetson‬ 】

---

Toji stayed on the low, didn’t care about anything or anyone because he only loved himself and no more. He’d take his targets to the grave and then he’d ghost.

Yeah, he knew he could be cold. In the dark was where he liked to keep his heart, he knew he was all bite and no bark, he liked to catch them way off guard.

Yeah, he was a straight up villain, no feeling. No fear, no pain, just let his brain go stupid go dumb go stupid and then he’d go insane, because he could do anything.

(He was so damn alone and condemned, it was necrotizing.)

He was a straight up villain, no feeling, none at all.

(There was no way he felt lonely.)

…

Mahito liked to roll the dice, was the type to risk his life, not afraid to die. He was the type to make you cry, the type to get deep into your head, make you do just what he said.

With both Junpei and Itadori it was the same, he played with their hearts for fun like he played with other humans’ souls, warping them with just a touch.

Yeah, he was a straight up villain, no feeling. No fear, no pain, he could do anything, make them do just what he said as he lead the way until they went pow.

(He was so damn lost in the world, it made him desperate and reckless.)

He was a straight up villain, no feeling, none at all.

(There was no way he felt distressed.)

…

Sukuna was alive but he was dead, and the brat would hear his voice up in his head, and Sukuna would watch it fill him full of dread.

Yeah, he was a straight up villain, no feeling. No fear, no pain, he could do anything. Go stupid go dumb go stupid and then go insane, and it wouldn’t change anything.

He was just killing time until he died, staying deep inside your brain and then sending you somewhere far away.

(He was so damn unsatisfied, it made him determined to stay and wait for something better.)

He was a straight up villain, no feeling, none at all.

(There was no way he felt disappointed.)

…

Yeah, Kenjaku was a straight up villain, no feeling. Was it really a surprise if he was playing with your mind? If he treated you like a prize and then threw you to the side?

Was he really so bad if he loved to make you mad and got happy when you were sad?

No fear, no pain, he could do anything, and so he would.

(He was so damn bored, it made him want to destroy everything just for something interesting.)

He was a straight up villain, no feeling, none at all.

(There was no way he felt yearning.)

…

Naoya liked to be in control. That was what he wanted, and he was never letting go.

You could kill him, but he’d never had what you’d consider a soul, so you wouldn’t be taking anything from him should you go.

Yeah, he was a straight up villain, even came back from the dead as a vengeful ghost, and that was where he’d find his dark and twisted soul, gone stupid gone dumb gone stupid gone insane, alive but he was dead.

(He was so damn starving, it made him willing to do absolutely anything.)

He was a straight up villain, no feeling, none at all.

(There was no way he desperately missed Toji.)

Chapter 37: Dagon & Toji: Sharks

Notes:

this was another cabernet sauvignon (it's my fav wine variety ok) this one called "Juicy", the song it remind me of Zeli - Sharks

very short piece but i had fun with this one

---

The human with no cursed energy was running water and swimming with the sharks. Somehow he was fine, and Dagon was reminded of four-leafed clovers, half-cut composure, silver coins held and turned over, breezes burning golden and smoke stolen. Such simple and normal but improbable and almost unnoticeable but somehow unforgettable things

He didn’t realize that it was his fortune that the human was folding.

In the water, it was hard to tell the human with no cursed energy apart from the sharks, and the human couldn’t seem to tell, either. Catching fish in his mouth and swimming in the water like he was king there like the sharks he was swimming with and tearing apart.

---

Being out of his mind didn’t work like it used to. Toji was getting hotter by the moment, remaining and danger to himself and to everyone. He couldn’t stand to stay idle, courted death was sweet on survival, felt on fire waiting for the next arrival that he couldn’t feel sane without.

All he could ask for never had made its way into his eyes.

It was out of his control now, a play he’d set in motion when he still kept a disguise.

Now he could swim alongside sharks and couldn’t tell himself apart from them. What was it that he wanted?

Cold in the water, and it couldn’t be a bigger ocean. He’d never expected to forget about it.

As he went, he remained a stranger to himself.

Stabbing himself in the head, he couldn’t tell the difference from stabbing the sharks.

He was just killing the strongest beings around.

Notes:

apparently Dagon/Fushiguro Toji is a legitimate tag...

i do not want to know

Chapter 38: Toji & Satoru: Turn It Up

Notes:

i forgot to post for a day or two, sowwy♡

haha sorry for the Naoya reference, couldn't help it

ok but no i srsly forgot i'm sorry

anyways this chapter isn't about him, it's about Toji and Gojo

this one was a lot of fun

the wine was a petite sirah, the song it tasted like was Inkyz - Turn It Up, please do check this one out it's so fun, love this band they have such a vibe

---

Toji knew he was a summoning, but he didn’t care. He was having so much fun. ‘Kill sorcerers’? Way to ask him be what he was. He was literally the Sorcerer Killer.

But why would he kill sorcerers when there was something stronger to sharpen his teeth on? Annihilating the strongest around—he’d always loved that. What was the difference between a sorcerer and a cursed spirit anyway? They both used cursed energy. All just the same to him who had none.

Turn the power up—yeah, Toji liked that. Go on, come now, bring it back, do that again. Toji wanted to do it again.

Too bad, the strongest around was dead. Exorcised, whatever. Same difference, just one left a body and one didn’t. Time for the next strongest.

Go on, come now, turn the power up, just how Toji liked it.

Oh, it was his son. Who knew Megumi would be this weak? Well, he’d still been stronger than the others even in his weakened state, but that wasn’t saying much, given that they’d been—oh, had that been Naobito? Ha, the old man had gotten even older, but he had assisted Toji at the end there. Naobito always had seen him, like his son with the same technique had, though Naoya had adored him. He must be grown now, huh? Toji wondered how he was doing.

Not that it mattered. He wasn’t going to be killing his own son. He wasn’t that much of a monster. Only thing to do then was end this summoned existence.

It had been nice to come back for a bit, do it all again. Toji had liked that.

The power could still have been turned up, though.

It would’ve been real nice to get a second chance at killing Gojo Satoru.

---

Ha, these special-grade cursed spirits were so fun. Civilian deaths aside, Satoru hadn’t had this much fun in a long, long time.

Yeah, turn the power up, Satoru liked that. It gave him an excuse to turn up his own. It was oh so oh so rare that he got to let loose, that he got to destroy with his sheer overwhelming intensity, have them feel more than just a little bit of it, have it them feel it, feel what he was.

Earth spirit gone, annihilated by the heavens that he was. Now it was volcano head’s turn. Strongly Kamo-esque Blood Manipulation could wait, he was even weaker than weak.

But then the patch face arrived on a train full of transfigured humans.

Turn it up, yeah, Satoru liked that—damnit, this was not what he had meant. Killing transfigured humans wasn’t fun, it was just annoying. Had to hand it to them, though. They were pressing at supposed weaknesses. Things that would’ve been weaknesses if it were any other sorcerer than him.

If they wanted to play dirty like that, he could play dirtier.

Domain Expansion: Limitless Void, 0.2 seconds. Even just 0.2 seconds of his power was more than anyone could take, the very most that they could take without going insane. That was how powerful he was.

In the next 299 seconds, he annihilated the approximately 1,000 transfigured humans who were released within B5F of the Fukutoshin line. Yeah he was panting from exertion after, but that was physical power, not cursed energy level, his cursed energy was as high as ever, this bit of panting as he caught his breath. It would still be a few minutes before either of the cursed spirits or the cursed womb regained themselves. If he moved now, he could take them out before—

“Prison Realm… open.”

Suguru’s voice. Even after all these years Satoru couldn’t ever mistake it.

Satoru didn’t know what was going on, only knew that they were playing very, very dirty, and this wasn’t fun at all. This wasn’t turning the power up. This was just using every trick in the banned book to try to get past his power because they knew they could never beat him. So they could only trick him. His strength always had been raw power and genius ability. Tricks were not his forte, because he’d never needed them and they’d never worked against him.

But they’d known his weak spot, the one weak spot he did have that no other sorcerer did, and they’d distracted him and then pressed in.

He had to hand it to whoever the guy was who had taken Suguru’s body, the guy was clever as hell, knew a whole lot and had planned well. But Satoru had faith in his students.

And, well, time didn’t pass in the Prison Realm, so it didn’t matter when he was let out. He’d always be the Strongest, no matter the era.

He hadn’t accounted for Sukuna in Megumi’s body, with full control of Mahoraga.

But yes, turn the power up, Satoru liked that. Bring that overwhelming intensity like Toji’s back, let Satoru do it again.

For so long he had been missing this, yes, yes, Sukuna turn it up, Sukuna bring it back, Sukuna do it all again, Satoru liked that.

Please don’t let this be a dream.

He dressed himself like Toji, in memory of the best moments of his life.

He died like Toji, in pieces, unexpectedly, part of him standing and part of him on the ground, not really caring at all.

He’d gotten everything he’d wanted, in the end. He couldn’t have asked for anything more. Except maybe to have fought Toji again, but Toji was dead and he’d gotten to fight his son, made stronger by Sukuna, and that was almost as good.

Yeah, Satoru had liked that.

Chapter 39: Yuji: Red Water Dreams

Notes:

"that shiraz i really don’t like again lol but it’s emergency wine and i’m a lil desperate not being able to sleep and my head’s all hazy and idk what to do with myself so yeah"

was what i wrote before writing this chapter lol. this was the shiraz that tastes like dead things, i think i wrote for it a couple times before, it was a boxed wine that got siphoned off into bottles, that yeah i've ended up using as 'emergency' wine because i rlly dislike it so i have to be kinda desperate to drink it. but i try to find a different song every time

this time the song for this shiraz that quite nearly grosses me the fuck out was Aviators - Red Water Dreams

still a great song even if the wine wasn't lol

for posterity: this chapter was written before the manga ended, so i don't at this time know how things end up going for Yuji and Sukuna, so some of the assumptions here may turn out to be wrong (i was inspired for this piece by an opinion article theorizing that Yuji may be planning to die in order to kill Sukuna)

---

In Shibuya, in Yuji’s head, the streets were running red.

How many people Sukuna had killed—how many people Yuji had killed. It was in his head, it was his body, it was his hands, it just hadn’t been his soul. Sukuna’s soul, but his hands.

The memories washed over him, the fire that consumed the trusting, the victims still naive. And so they bled, washed the streets in red, their haunted burdens stirring in Yuji’s head, crying in grief a requiem, the curse of their millennium.

Sukuna was just a false god, and vicious thoughts stirred in Yuji, the gates released, a hunger for the power, take himself as the vessel as the red rain still showered, the water flowing beneath the ruins of Sukuna’s skull tower where he resided in peace.

He’d come much too far to accept this society that had been made, the elders that should cower, the ignorance of puppets like Mahito that served the master’s larger game. It turned out Kenjaku was the one who unleashed the waters, but Sukuna with his flames was still guilty all the same.

When Yuji got the chance to rise, he’d find the cold light in their eyes, or lose himself and carry out revenge.

The righteous hunt had just begun, and the dimming of the bleeding sun would let the waters run clear once again. An end to all these violent means, alive in all his red water dreams.

The haunted burdens in his head, the streets still running red—

They’d never be exorcised, never be clean, till both Sukuna and he were dead.

Sukuna’s soul, Yuji’s hands, Kenjaku’s plans. Mahito, like Yuji, had been just a pawn who hadn’t known what he was part of. But just like Yuji, Mahito was guilty all the same.

Sukuna’s soul, Yuji’s hands, Kenjaku’s plans, Mahito’s and Megumi’s power, their innate techniques.

When the culprits were as naive as the victims, as so they also bled, still guilty all the same.

In Yuji’s head was a cry of grief, a requiem. He was the curse of their millennium. Born from Kenjaku’s womb of Sukuna’s devoured twin’s seed.

Yuji was a curse, just like Mahito. Just as cursed an existence, just as naive, just as guilty. Just as much something that should never have existed, a fabricated life nurtured on milk they hadn’t realized was watery and red, they’d sucked it all the same, hungered for it, thinking their life a blessing and a right not realizing they were a curse thats existence was so wrong.

They hadn’t known. Not that Mahito would have cared. And wasn’t it ironic, that Megumi was the one who was named blessing but he was the one who gave up on life and wanted to die? Like he was the one who knew better than any of them that to be born into this world was to be cursed. Was it a blessing then to die? Didn’t that go against everything Yuji had always believed? A blessing to be born, a curse to die. But Yuji was the one who was wrong.

It was a curse that he had been born. It would be a blessing when he died, taking Sukuna with him.

On streets running red, Yuji walked towards his and Sukuna’s end.

Chapter 40: Sukuna: Dies Irae [Day of Wrath]

Notes:

the wine for this one was a chianti, and the song it tasted like was Rival - Dies Irae (with Laura Brehm & M.I.M.E)

Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) is a Latin hymn sung in a Mass for the dead.

this piece sort of ended up as a Sukuna companion piece to the previous Yuji chapter

---

Sukuna was a king not a god, unlike the Six Eyes he didn’t portray any facade.

Sing a hymn for the dead who had raised their strength against him; he’d loved them all dearly, had opened his heart and given them all of him. They hadn’t survived the way he had loved them. It was the day of wrath, the day of doom, heaven and earth in ashes ending.

Throughout the heavens and earth, Gojo Satoru alone was the chosen one?

Throughout hell, Ryomen Sukuna alone was the chosen one, and hell infringed on heaven and earth like his open domain, as open as his heart, infringed upon the world without barrier.

Sukuna was the night, the dawn of the dead, born in the dirt and it showed, he’d put in his blood and put in his sweat, all of his might and everything said, he’d rather be dead than feel any regret. On the run from his past, all on his own but he could see the path, battle like a warrior and his reputation was notorious. His life wasn’t epic or glorious, he was just living to kill all the time until he died.

He broke all the codes, all his demons and curses and ghosts, he gave up all peace and sanity, everything he’d never owned, just because he’d rather be dead than be close.

Every time someone challenged him, he let himself fall, his heart open, resting in their hands.

Loving him so, they always gave him their best. He always consumed them, just like the rest.

Welcome to hell, it’s the day of wrath and doom.

Throughout heavens and earth, Gojo Satoru alone was the honored one?

Throughout hell, Ryomen Sukuna alone was the honored one, and it was hell which consumed the heavens and earth, never the opposite. You could drown life but could never drown death, you could drown happiness but could never drown misery.

Gojo Satoru needed someone to set him free.

Sukuna needed someone he could actually carry.

He gave Gojo Satoru what he needed. He took what he needed in return.

The immortal god got to die, and the King of Curses got to kill someone he’d actually remember.

When all was said and done, the Six Eyes had his heart more than anyone, had taken it the most desirously and most possessively in his hands.

Sukuna would never forget him. He forgot most of the rest, his love for them too brief, rendered too shallow. But Gojo Satoru had dragged him in deep.

After the Six Eyes, everyone else could only be a disappointment.

But still Sukuna loved life too much to die. Silently and unsentimentally sung a hymn for all of the dead who had tried to love him and had never been enough. How he admired them as much as he was disappointed by them. Kami bless them, they had tried. And he had more than gladly strapped in for the ride.

He was too much, was hell on earth, hell within heaven, the day of wrath and doom.

He was the King of Curses, not a god. He didn’t have any facade.

He simply existed and simply was.

Beyond all comprehension, his existence still was.

Sing a hymn for the dead, a requiem, but he would never be one of them.

He was something beyond what the world could endure, because he was something beyond what the world could comprehend.

And so he would kill time again and again and again, until the world finally sent him something worth catching his falling heart.

He loved the world as much as he knew how; it was just that the world never seemed to love him enough to give him anyone who could rival him enough to love him back as hungrily as he loved and devoured.

Only the Six Eyes came close, but still the Six Eyes was far mroe easily appeased than he, gave up far too easily, didn’t wish to live like Sukuna wished to live, experiencing everything that his life could possibly give and then some.

Kill him, burn him, tear him down; it would never be enough to end what this world had started with his birth from a human womb, would never be enough to end this existence that he had legitimized by devouring his twin to live to his greatest capability and then rise again as a cursed object from a soul so large he could splinter it into twenty fingers and still be the strongest even at just a twentieth of himself.

He was the King of Curses because he was the greatest curse that had ever been born.

Only Gojo Satoru could surmount even those fractions of him.

Every single curse in existence was born from humans. Sukuna was just a more human and sorcerer version, given everything to make him a curse despite his being born as human, he lived on his own and fought on his own like he’d kill on his own just not to die on his own.

If he ever died, he knew he’d die with company. He’d never die without bringing the one who brought him down down.

But those who died from him could never bring him down with them. Never, never, because he was just too different an existence, too high above them.

He loved them more than they could ever love him. Even Gojo Satoru hadn’t loved him enough, hadn’t loved life enough, had wanted too much to die, had accepted it when he hadn’t had to.

(In the end, maybe only Yuji cared about him enough to truly bring him down, taking himself to the grave along with him because that was just how much he couldn’t bear to go down and be without him.)

Chapter 41: Suguru & Satoru: My Feelings

Notes:

well, while i'm still procrastinating on actually doing the research and work for the new psychology-heavy jjk college au i've started to try to motivate myself to do some online courses and read some books, have another drabble chapter haha

the wine for this one was an Italian pinot noir and the song it tasted like was Serhat Durmus - My Feelings (ft. Georgia Ku)

---

Sometimes Suguru woke with Satoru’s voice inside his head, found himself sleeping on Satoru’s side of the bed. It almost felt like he hadn’t left, like Satoru wasn’t gone.

Sometimes Suguru felt like he was falling to pieces wondering why they hadn’t kept themselves from shattering before it all came undone.

They’d loved each other too much; so much that they’d both taken up each other’s views, and isolated the other just the same as they’d once been isolated. So nothing had changed, although they had both changed.

It was ironic, really.

Satoru was the best friend that Suguru had ever had, and ever would. And he knew that he was the best friend that Satoru had ever had, and ever would.

And yet they were so separate, now. So irreconcilable, now. Who would have ever imagined that? That they’d both go such separate ways? From being so different but right next to each other to being so close to the other that they’d ended up on the other side of them, and so were so much farther apart?

If Suguru’s tears hadn’t fell and his heart hadn’t broken, if that night would have gone a better way—maybe he’d still be there, by Satoru’s side.

But he hated that idea, because he’d much rather have Satoru have ended up by his.

He was the one who embodied what Satoru had believed in.

Satoru had just wanted something else. Something other than Suguru. Something more.

Well, Satoru was the Six Eyes. He could have whatever he wanted.

Clearly he didn’t want Suguru enough to fight for him.

But surely he still cared about Suguru enough to kill him when Suguru failed what he’d known he could never achieve, because he wasn’t Gojo Satoru, the Six Eyes.

He was simply Geto Suguru, Curse Manipulator, and maybe father of two and maybe leader of more, and they loved him but although he loved them he never loved them more than he’d loved Satoru.

It was ironic, really.

That Satoru was both his best memories and also his end.

“You could at least curse me at my end—”

“You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

It hurt Suguru all the way down into his soul that Satoru was so alone, and yet still there while Suguru had left, Satoru unable to leave himself.

---

If Satoru had picked up on Suguru’s signs crying for help, when Suguru had begged him to stay and be there, if their love hadn’t ricocheted, maybe Suguru would still be there by his side. They’d both still be there, right there, and it would be fine.

Suguru’s things were all still in the same place that he’d left them, Satoru and so no one else dared disturb them. Nothing filled the emptiness in Satoru’s chest, his heart didn’t beat like it had before.

Sometimes he played his fight with Suguru over again, thinking of all he could have said and done different, and it just hurt him even more.

He saw Suguru turn up again with his cursed energy he could conceal the traces of from everyone except him, and didn’t Suguru know? That Satoru, if no one else, would be able to sense that he’d been there. Assuredly Suguru had been counting on it.

It made Satoru feel sick, like he was being used.

It made him feel even sicker knowing just how much stronger he was than Suguru could ever be, how easy it would be to kill him when he didn’t want to, didn’t want to have to.

But god, Suguru seemed so determined on making him have to, like being killed by him was all Suguru actually wanted.

Maybe it was.

If things had gone Satoru’s way, if his tears hadn’t fallen and his heart hadn’t broken, maybe Suguru would still be there. If Satoru had just seen Suguru’s suffering and done something, maybe Suguru would still be there.

But Satoru hadn’t seen, and Suguru was no longer there.

If their love hadn’t ricocheted, maybe they’d still be there, together, the two strongest.

But it had, and so they were apart, so incredibly apart that it didn’t matter what they could possibly say to each other. Neither of them would ever be convinced.

The both of them, back then, had been trying to maintain a raison d'être they hadn’t believed in, or else hadn’t wanted to believe in, had both wished for something more without having the words to wish for it.

What Satoru had believed but hadn’t wanted to, Suguru had come to believe. What Suguru had thought he believed, Satoru had found sanctuary in the belief in.

They wouldn’t ever be able to reconcile anymore, because they’d both had epiphanies that were the mirror opposite.

If things had gone their way, maybe they’d both still be there.

But it hadn’t, and so instead of being best friends, they could only become the most intimate of enemies. Wishing to be able to curse each other, but being utterly unable to.

There was no greater curse than that kind of love.

Satoru wanted to hate Suguru, so badly, but he couldn’t.

So he could only hate himself.

But honestly, Suguru could do with hating himself rather more than he did.

Still Satoru, despite everything, couldn’t hate him. He could only pity him.

Pity him, and hate himself for him, because he knew that Suguru couldn’t hate him, either, no matter how much he should.

Satoru was the Six Eyes, and everything was his fault, even when it wasn’t.

That was why he didn’t have to go down the route that Suguru did.

Everything that Suguru did was his fault anyway.

Chapter 42: Sukuna [vs. Everyone]: Wolf Totem

Notes:

wine for this one was a toscana, the song it tasted like was The HU - Wolf Totem (turn on subtitles/closed captions for English translation)

---

Others fought fire with water, battling with opposite element. Sukuna fought fire with fire, overpowering with the same element.

Others fought strength with tricks, tricks with strength, outsmarting what they couldn’t overpower and overpowering what they couldn’t outsmart. Sukuna fought strength with strength, tricks with tricks, overpowering the powerful and outsmarting the smart.

Others fought snakes by becoming like birds, fought tigers by becoming like lions, gaining for themselves higher ground or larger numbers. Sukuna fought snakes by becoming a snake, fought tigers by becoming a tiger, meeting his every opponent as they were but better.

How to fight an unbeatable divinity like the Six Eyes? Sukuna came with the unbeatable divinity Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga. He gave Gojo Satoru back everything that he gave, just better.

That was what he’d wanted Megumi’s body for. Because his main goal in this age he’d awoke in was to kill the divinity that was the Six Eyes, and he would do it by using the Ten Shadows Technique to meet Gojo Satoru as just such a divinity.

Gojo Satoru, upon dying, thought to himself that Sukuna had been holding back on him by not overtaking Megumi with his own form. Gojo Satoru was mistaken. Sukuna used Megumi’s body not in order to disrespect Gojo Satoru, but in order to honor him, respect him, acknowledge him as being strong enough to need the Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga to overcome his Infinity and defeat him. Sukuna had not held back on Gojo Satoru; he’d given him everything.

Only once Gojo Satoru was dead did he overtake Megumi’s body with his own form, and he did so because he didn’t need the Ten Shadows Technique and Divine General Mahoraga for them; his own form was more than enough. They could have the same of him as every other who had faced him before them, sans the Six Eyes.

He didn’t take his own form to honor, respect or acknowledge the rabble that came after him after Gojo Satoru. He did it because they were nothing to him and deserved no special treatment. They didn’t deserve the wrath of the heavens. They came to him as humans; so he’d come to them as one. Not as a cursed object possessing the body of another who’d been a friend to them, but as a four-armed, four-eyed human. The Six Eyes had been a gem polished and faceted by countless generations, just like the Ten Shadows; but these brats came to him rough and raw, so he came to them rough and raw.

Sukuna did not win against his opponents by being something other than they were. He won against them by being the same as they were, just better.

That was why he was the King of Curses: not because he was a curse, but because he was the best at every curse. He was the king of every kind of cursed existence, because he was everything that all of them were, just more.

Itadori Yuji was the most boring because he was the only one who didn’t realize what he was. Who didn’t like it, love it, own it. Itadori Yuji was the only one who hated and denied it.

That his life, just like everyone’s, was a curse.

Sukuna was the King of Curses—the King of Life.

He’d never die, because he was so much better at living—so much better at being a curse—than anybody.

If they came to him as wolves, he’d come to them a wolf, just better.

Chapter 43: Everyone [vs. Sukuna]: Wolf Totem (Remix)

Notes:

same toscana, but the piece i'd written was short and i wanted to write more so i tired to find another song that fit but couldn't so i just used the remix The HU - Wolf Totem feat. Jacoby Shaddix of Papa Roach which is half English

but yeh the piece is still rlly short and barely more than some of the song lyrics but ah well, here it is anyway, as a bit of a companion piece to the last

---

If the lion wanted war, they’d fight him to the bitter end. If the tiger came running, they’d fight him to the bloody end. If the elephant came, he’d bow beneath their brethren.

No matter how Sukuna came to them, they’d fight him till the battle’s end, till either he or they were all dead. Would they go hard? Hell yeah, they’d seize the day. If Sukuna was going to bring the evil, they’d bury it today.

They’d all been lost, they’d all been cold, they all knew what it was like to be low, they all knew what it was like to be alone. But together, they weren’t alone. And that was why they’d fight, rising to the brethren code. They had each other’s backs. They’d either go down together, or take down Ryomen Sukuna together.

The lion wanted war, so they’d fight him to the bitter end. The tiger came running, so they’d fight him to the bloody end. The elephant came, so they’d make him bow beneath their brethren.

Sukuna brought hellfire down upon them, like a dragon killing demons, but they’d bury him today, even if they could only taken him into the ground along with them.

It would be worth it, in the end. They’d remain true to that brethren code, save the world…

What more, what less, could they do as jujutsu sorcerers?

Everyone had their death. They’d have theirs; and Ryomen Sukuna, too, would have his.

Chapter 44: Naoya: BURN

Notes:

the wine for this piece was merlot. merlots always taste like some kind of power. i'm not rlly sure why i don't get them more often. i love their feel. but my fav is cabernet sauvignon, which is a wine that tastes of darkness and depression. guess it says too much abt me that that's my fav and the wine variety i'm most attracted to. so i don't get merlot so often. even tho i do rlly love the feel.

this merlot tasted like 2WEI & Edda Hayes - BURN

"There are so few jjk characters who are actually canonically in love. Literally the only ones I can think of are Yuta/Rika, Kokichi/Kasumi, and then Naoya pining obsessively for Toji." - was the note i wrote before i wrote this chapter

like, i'm sorry, but Naoya is definitely the most obsessed unrequited lover in jjk lmao. this wine/song couldn't go to anyone but him

---

They could try to break him, but Naoya cut his teeth on small fry like them. It would take a whole lot more to take him down. With his Projection Sorcery, he was always a step ahead.

Just watch him wear his crown. Hate him, go ahead. It didn’t mean a thing to him. Let all the small fry grovel on the ground and curse him for his superiority. Yeah, go ahead.

You couldn’t count the curses that he’d exorcised. He was like Satoru-kun, in that. Maybe not as high as him, yet, but still so much higher above all the rest.

Yeah, give it all you got, but the lion that he was couldn’t be tamed. Love was running through his veins, fire in his blood.

Toji-kun. Toji-kun. Toji-kun. Every slap, every beat of his heart. Burning, burning, burning ravenous flames.

You didn’t even know. How he wanted to burn this city down, he he wanted to put you under ground, how he wanted to make the stars fall from the sky, how he wanted to make the clouds and heavens cry, how he wanted to make everything burn. Burn the earth and burn the stars, burn the light and burn the dark, burn away his life and burn away his death. Anything just to stand by Toji-kun’s side.

He wouldn’t surrender or give up. Are you kidding? He never learned how to lose a fight.

Toji hadn’t been there to teach him that.

I’m afraid I’ll have to end ya now.♡ You better run or I just might—

He was playing piano in the night, in the dark, dancing his fingers over ivory and ebony keys beneath the tenuous light of stars, music in three stanzas of eight beats, twenty-four, twenty-four, twenty-four, and all the night air had to move like him or be frozen and burn and decay.

There was fire in his blood, love in his veins, and the entire world always changed but everything always stayed the same.

Let it burn, let it burn, let it burn, down, down, down.

He didn’t care if his entire clan died. He didn’t care if everyone in the entire fucking world died. Toji-kun was already dead. All Naoya cared about was being strong enough to stand by his side in the procès-verbal of time. Call it history, call it legacy, call it unaccountable mystery—all those things were more or less the same.

Let the entire world burn.

None of them had ever seen Toji-kun, except, perhaps, for Satoru-kun.

Burn it down, down, down, down, down, down.

Naoya didn’t care at all.

Nothing would ever slow him down or hold him back. Nothing would ever make him surrender or make him give in.

Toji-kun was inexplicable like a celestial anomaly, and Naoya wasn’t aiming for the stars like where Satoru-kun was, he was aiming for that undefinable existence beyond them where all laws of physics and existence ceased to have any hold on the self-embodied world.

He, more than anyone except perhaps for Yuta-kun, had love running through his veins, and so the lion that he was could not ever be tamed. Not even death would hold him down. He’d just come back, like Yuta-kun brought Rika-chan back, back to an existence that may not be life but it was so much stronger.

Domain Expansion: Temporal Womb Moon Palace.

Ah, Naoya felt better dead than he’d ever felt alive.

Toji-kun was dead, too. He just didn’t have the cursed energy to come back on his own. Such a shame Naoya hadn’t had the chance to run into him in Shibuya. He would’ve gladly lost an arm like Naobito-san just to see Toji-kun again. The beauty that he’d missed by thinking that the incident in Shibuya was boring, not realizing that Toji-kun would be summoned.

How fitting, he wouldn’t realize, that he died just as pathetically as Toji-kun had, thinking that he’d had his win in the bag only to be made to realize how human and weak he truly was.

Toji could escape cursed energy, but he couldn’t escape his humanity. Naoya could escape social need, but he couldn’t escape his humanity.

In the end, the night sky was just dark space, the stars were just infinitely distant suns, the clouds were just water vapor in air, cities were just residences built by humans to hold them and protect them from the weather which was nothing but atmosphere, and none of it meant anything. There was earth, but there was no heavens and there was no hell. Everything simply was, and didn’t mean anything at all.

Like Toji’s strength, and Naoya’s love, and Satoru’s eyes.

None of it meant a thing, because they all still died, despite everything that they’d said and believed.

Chapter 45: Toji: Juggernaut

Notes:

man yesterday was weird af and today sucked. wait, scratch that, time is so weird - yesterday sucked, the day before yesterday was weird af, hopefully today will be better but who knows

anyways, my uncertainty about how many days i forgot to post aside -

wine for this piece was a zinfandel, the song it made me think of was 2WEI, Joznez & Kataem - Juggernaut and wow ok the art for official lyric video there is such a Toji vibe too

---

Toji was a juggernaut.

(No weight would ever stop him.)

Every time he won, for him it wasn’t enough.

(If you weren’t ballin’ with him, better bounce.)

Back then, they couldn’t tell him from the monkeys, couldn’t pick him out of the bunch.

(Funny how when you were on a whole ‘nother level, they told you you were out of touch.)

Back then they loved to close the door in his face, but now look at their faces, they were running out of doubt.

(Yeah, they saw him now.)

This time he’d take his pain out.

(Bet you could feel his pain now.)

Yeah, he was moving for the takedown.

(Maybe he was stuck in his ways, corrupt in a way.)

Back then he couldn’t show any pride, he just tucked it away.

(But his cousin had always thought he was one of the greats.)

Now he was glowed up, flexing muscle for gains.

(Causalities were lying beneath his every step.)

No more was he stuck in the mud while they were chuckin’ shade.

(He was giving out smoke, you could see every breath.)

Yeah he was there at their neck, in the field like a ref.

(He could walk through a war without seeing a threat.)

They’d always said that they wanted it, but they were never direct.

(He’d give it to them nonetheless.)

He’d take heads when he took crowns, it was more than a risk he could take now.

(Time to take revenge, yeah, he’d take his pain out.)

Bet you could feel his pain now.

(Yeah, you couldn't look away from him now.)

Toji was a juggernaut.

Chapter 46: Toji, Satoru, Sukuna: MAKE IT

Notes:

well today was better than yesterday, aside from that i have nothing to say except that reading manga aloud in German is really fucking fun

anyways

this piece was actually for the same zinfandel as the previous chapter, but that piece ended up so short and i wanted to keep writing so i went and found another song that worked for the atmospheric vibes and found HVZVRD & SINDICVT - MAKE IT

---

Toji looked up at Gojo Satoru floating there in the gold late afternoon summer sky and thought, I can make it.

Blue and its attraction; Red and its repellent. He could handle it. He had the Inverted Spear of Heaven.

---

Satoru looked over at Sukuna with his Malevolent Shrine, his Dismantle and Cleave and thought, I can make it.

Immeasurable cursed energy; cutting innate techniques. He could handle it. He had Limitless, Infinity.

---

Toji felt so good, fighting Gojo Satoru, he’d never felt better. He’d never felt stronger. He’d never felt freer. He’d never felt more alive.

Black t-shirt tight around his torso, baggy gray training pants loose around his thighs, martial arts shoes on his feet like a second sole, he felt hot as fuck and completely in control.

He’d never gotten to use all his strength like this. Had never gotten to use all his skill like this. Had never gotten to prove himself like this.

Ah, it was glorious.

---

Satoru felt so good, fighting Sukuna, he’d never felt better. He’d never felt stronger. He’d never felt freer. He’d never felt more alive.

Black t-shirt tight around his torso, baggy gray training pants loose around his thighs, martial arts shoes on his feet like a second sole, he felt hot as fuck and completely in control.

He’d never gotten to use all his power like this. Had never gotten to use all his skill like this. Had never gotten to unleash himself like this.

Ah, it was glorious.

---

Toji knew that something was wrong. He’d ignored it.

Then he was feeling pain too shocking to be pain, was feeling an emptiness and removal of self, stretched his arm that was there to the void space where part of him wasn’t, felt only the drippings of blood.

Ah, so this is what death is like.

Real peaceful, all things considered.

---

Satoru hadn’t at all realized that something was wrong.

Then he was feeling pain too shocking to be pain, was feeling an emptiness and removal of self, stared at the sky that mirrored the void of his soul, realized part of himself was cut from him, felt the dripping blood.

Ah, so this is what death is like.

Please don’t let this be a dream.

---

Satoru looked at Toji’s dead body as it remained there, standing.

I’ll never forget you, Zen’in Toji.

You’re the greatest opponent I’ve ever faced; and ever will.

---

Sukuna looked at Gojo’s dead body as it half stood, half laid there.

I’ll never forget you, Gojo Satoru.

You’re the greatest opponent I’ve ever faced; and ever will.

---

Looking down at Toji from above, having figured out reverse cursed energy and the knowledge for Hollow Purple, Satoru thought, I can make it.

And he did.

(Afterwards, though, he maybe regretted it.)

---

Looking over at Satoru, having Megumi’s Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga, Sukuna thought, I can make it.

And he did.

(Afterwards, though, he maybe regretted it.)

---

After killing Toji, Satoru looked up at the ember-turning gold late afternoon summer sky and wondered to himself, Was it worth it?

His mind told him Yes, but his heart told him No.

He didn’t know what said his soul.

---

After killing Gojo, Sukuna looked at the too-clear too-blue autumn early afternoon sky and wondered to himself, Was it worth it?

His heart told him Yes, but his mind told him No.

He didn’t know what said his soul.

Chapter 47: Kokichi/Kasumi: Please

Notes:

this piece was a mystery wine, my irl made me close my eyes and smell it and then taste it and guess the variety. i did guess correctly bc fortunately it was a cabernet sauvignon which is my favorite red wine variety and the one i’m most familiar with lol, had it been a variety i’m less familiar with i may not have gotten it, but he’ll probably be testing me again so we’ll have to see haha. he thinks it’s interesting to test if i can do it bc he’s not very familiar with wine and red wines just taste like red wine and white wines just taste like white wines, he can’t tell the difference between the varieties lol.

before determining that it was a cab what i first got was that it tasted like rain in the dark falling through the red glow of a streetlight. super cabernet vibe.

the song that it reminded me of was Saro - Please.
gave me a lot of nostalgia, this was one of the songs i listened to while writing Illiaz's pov in my dark literary fantasy novel The Blessed (published through Thinklings Books and written under the author name Remy Apepp. yeh i'm actually a published author lol. kinda crazy? i got scouted from some of my DN fanfiction over on my old ff.net account, even... but man in this day and age most of being a successful author is doing social media and i hate social media. hence why i end up typing long casual author notes sometimes bc this is pretty much the closest thing to social media that i'm doing rn haha, and occasionally i do get chatty... occasionally, but yeah i'm bad at consistency. i just rlly rlly rlly love writing... social media not so much. and editing also not so much haha. my third novel's been in the editing process for months... or maybe like a year... fjdksl i usually barely edit my fanfics if at all. though sometimes i do edit these drunk-writing pieces when they strike me as particularly bad... which was not this piece but was definitely the next piece after this lol)

ok but bruh the only canon jjk pairings are Yuta/Rika, Kokichi/Kasumi and one-sided Naoya/Toji lol, my options for some of these songs are limited. but lookyy i resisted the urge to write TojiNao again haha (altho i did do that for the next chapter bc i couldn't help myself...)

anyways i'm pretty pleased with this Kokichi piece tbh, this one's kinda become headcanon for me

---

It was hard for Kokichi to sleep unless he took the pain meds. And then sleeping wasn’t much more than sleeping off the side effects.

It was hard to sleep being in agony all the time, it was hard to think being in agony all the time, it was hard to feel anything but pain being in agony all the time. But he tried, he really did. Just so that they wouldn’t call him a mistake and throw him away.

The puppets helped; he could almost leave himself, put his awareness somewhere else, somewhere outside of him, so his body was more distant to him than the inanimate cursed dolls he was operating. The more dolls and the more they were doing, the better; the more distracted he was from his corporeal self, the more delved he was in his cursed energy, the easier it was to think, the easier it was to feel other things than pain.

But still he couldn’t sleep. That’s what the pain meds were for. The only thing they were for, really. Because in reducing the pain, they made him so sleepy. He couldn’t think like that, couldn’t feel like that.

Sleeping off the side effects again because he’d doubled the intake to try to sleep eight hours like the rest of his classmates, instead of just the two to four hours he usually caught at most. He hated the grogginess and the way the pain came back so creepingly, but he did it anyway, because he loved opening Mechamaru’s eyes to see Miwa smiling down at him and telling him “Good morning, Mechamaru-kun!”

They all called him by the name of his puppet, not by his own name. But that was fine, because he hated who he was. The only part he liked about himself was his puppets. But damnit, he could barely even feel anything but agony. And yet she smiled at him so kittenishly.

Aoi had demanded, upon meeting him, what his ‘type’ was. How the hell could Kokichi have a ‘type’ when he couldn’t even feel attraction, sexual or otherwise, because all he could feel was burning stabbing paralyzing pain? Who could think about sex and romance when they were undergoing torture every living moment of their existence?

Despite Mechamaru being a cursed puppet, Miwa treated him like he was almost normal. Unless Kokichi was imagining things, he even thought she liked him. She even said she wanted to visit him.

She couldn’t be in love with him like this. Or rather, he couldn’t stay like this if she was in love with him. He could never be enough for her like this. He couldn’t even be touched by another living being without being wracked with agony. All he had to touch her with was cursed puppets. And what kind of love life would that be? She deserved so much better.

He didn’t know if he loved her. He didn’t think he could love, always being in so much agony like this, hardly able to tell what else he was feeling. He didn’t think he loved her. But he wanted to. He liked her, and he wanted to love her. He wanted to be enough for her. He wanted to be the promise that she could keep. He wanted to be able to be the weakness in her knees.

Sometimes he wanted to tell her, Stop, don’t come closer so I won’t cry. Tears made him feel like his eyes were being melted by magma and it was searing down his face.

Being the way he was, he could never mean anything to her.

It wasn’t the best to be so wanting like this. But if it was all for her—

Could he be enough? If he offered his soul for something real. If he made a sacrifice so he could feel.

Mahito and Kenjaku were the devils for his deal.

When he made that Binding Vow, his fate was sealed.

Betray in order to be able to be there; and then be either condemned or saved only to need to either kill or be killed.

He did everything he could to raise the chances of his win. And he made a contingency backup plan for if he failed. That was the most and all that he could do.

Sitting alone in a bathtub of chemical concoction hooked up to wires in a dank dark moldy basement wracked with agony and hardly ever seeing a living soul with his own eyes, there wasn’t all that much for him to do except to his utmost to think through the pain, to do as much thinking as he could, as much acting as he could with his cursed energy and cursed puppets, just to distract himself from the abject torture of his existence.

He tried, but still he lost his train of thought so many times. And over half the time he couldn’t do anything but lie, pulling bullshit out of thin air because he had no idea what the truth was because all that was there was agony so he just grasped hold of whatever first thing he found, true or false, it didn’t matter, just as long as he grasped something enough to respond like he was fine and normal and wasn’t silently praying that he’d just die so it all would stop.

Please, he thought, looking with his cursed energy through Mechamaru’s eyes at Miwa smiling at him, please, just let me—

Let me be enough for you. Let me try. I can’t right now, but let me try. Let me—

and then he lost his train of thought in a wave of pain again.

He didn’t know what he was thinking. He didn’t know what he was feeling. He just wanted to be able to be there for her. Wanted to be able to love her like she wanted to love him.

Offering his soul for something real, a sacrifice so he could feel—

Kenjaku, Mahito, they’d just wanted the information he could gather, just like he’d just wanted the Idle Transfiguration they could offer. Both sides had planned to kill the other once the deal was done. And both sides had known that that was the plan of the other side. And both sides thought they could and would win, and knew that the other side that they could and would win. Kokichi would just out-maneuver them by also acting on the assumption that he wouldn’t, along with acting on the assumption that he would.

He didn’t actually have anything to lose. He’d made them promise not to harm the Kyoto students for as long as their deal was in place. And at the end, he’d either get to live without the incessant torturous agony or he’d get to finally die and be at peace. Either way, he wouldn’t have to suffer his hellhole Heavenly Restricted life any longer.

Please, he thought, looking at Miwa with his cursed energy through Mechamaru’s eyes, be here for me when I come to you. And if I can’t, then I’ll be here for you when you come to me. Please—let me be your promise that I keep.

Sacrificing his soul was nothing in exchange for something real. Making a sacrifice was nothing in exchange for getting to feel sans the agonizing pain.

He’d doubled his intake of pain meds again, because he liked the way she smiled at him like morning when he opened Mechamaru’s eyes with his waking. Sun that he wanted so desperately to be able to walk beneath, holding her hand.

He’d lost his train of thought again. But she was calling him by his puppet’s name, and it brought him back enough to say, “Good morning, Miwa-chan.”

“Did you sleep well, Mechamaru-kun?”

“Yes,” Kokichi said, not sure if it was a lie or not because he’d been conked out on pain medication strong enough to kill any normal person or even normal sorcerer, “I slept fine.”

The way she smiled at him hurt him with the agony of every waking moment of his existence, and so he couldn’t tell what it was.

What he wouldn’t give just to be able to experience whatever feeling that was without the all-consuming agony ravaging him.

What would it even be like to feel without any pain?

Such a concept was so far beyond his grasp, with pain being all that he knew and had ever known.

But he’d sacrifice his soul and anything else sans his classmates’ lives just to be able to be less eternal damnation and more something real.

Chapter 48: Naoya & Toji: Not Alone

Notes:

kay yeah here i am with my fav tragic pairing

and yeah i had to edit this one a fair amount later when sober bc the original was rlly bad bc i rlly was too drunk at the time, bc i wrote this one right after the previous chapter to the same wine, to the song that i had ended up at when i couldn’t remember the previous one that tasted more right for the wine (i had to go find my first draft of Illiaz's pov to find the song bc i always write down the songs i listen to in the document of whatever i'm writing, it's rlly nice for finding songs again when i can remember what i wrote while listening to them but can't remember what the song was called, it's saved my sanity so many times), but yeah once again i didn’t feel like stopping writing

so here were are with the same wine just another song Serhat Durmus - Not Alone

but i am absolutely convinced that the all the lyrics you can find online for this song are 50% wrong, like who the fuck let automatically generated captions interpret the lyrics of this song and then never bothered to actually listen and fix them

---

Toji was better gone, Naoya knew. Even though it killed him, made him want to kill, made him want to die. Toji was better gone.

Naoya wished he were strong enough to be alone like this. He would become strong enough to be alone like this. Just to make sure that Toji wasn’t alone in his loneliness. Just to be strong enough to feel Toji’s pain.

Naoya could feel himself drawn close to the scene, close to where Toji walked in shadow, just wanted to beg, Lead me on, give me some, then you can leave—

And Toji did leave, without giving him anything. Left Naoya with nothing, craving everything, sick with emptiness, starving. He could never love another soul because before the morning broke he’d just end up calling them Toji’s name, like he cried out when he woke up bolting upright with heart pounding reaching a hand into darkness where nothing was there for him to grasp.

Toji was better gone, but Naoya hated himself all the same. After all, he was the heir of the clan that had birthed Toji only to deny him and drive him away. Naoya was part of why Toji was gone, part of why Toji was better gone.

Naoya just wanted to be stronger than anyone else to feel this pain.

He told himself that he couldn’t be lonely when he wasn’t alone. Because he wasn’t alone, because Toji had also been entirely on his own, the only one to see and know his own strength, just like Naoya.

Toji was better gone.

Maybe Naoya was better gone, too.

But he was the Zen’in heir, a sorcerer genius who would succeed his father as the clan head, so he had to stay. He had to stay, and be stronger than anyone else to feel this pain.

Toji was better gone. Toji was better gone.

So why did it still make Naoya want to cry?

He should be stronger than this, strong like Toji in his loneliness, strong enough to stand by Toji’s side and feel this pain.

He could never love another soul, because they weren’t Toji-kun.

They. Were. Not. Toji-kun!!

What was death in the face of all this pain?

Naoya looking even Death in the face could think nothing but You. Are. Not. Toji-kun!! and escape the grasp that even after Toji’s death had never been what Naoya was reaching for in the empty darkness when he cried out Toji’s name.

Notes:

almost didn't want to post this piece, but part of this writing game is to post every piece no matter how imperfect it feels, so yeah i just fixed it up a bit to make it less cringe-y in the way that my very drunk writing can get and here it is, mostly what i wrote while drunk just tidied up and embellished a lil bit for accentuation. i should think abt editing my novel more in that way... would probly be helpful
wasn't the case for my first and second novels, but this third novel of mine i actually wrote in the same style as this drabble fic, literally the same game just with original characters, so it was an absolute mess.. like imagine trying to turn all the pieces in this fic into an actual coherent storyline lmao. "i know i read a good novel in there somewhere, i'm just not sure where" was the general consensus of those at my publisher who read it. my editor went through it and did a lot to clean it up and gave me suggestions for making it more coherent, but yeah i seriously need to do a lot to it fjdksljklk. seriously need to get better abt the editing thing.
anyways, i rlly liked the writing game but i couldn't do it with my original characters anymore after writing all i could with them, that's why i ended up doing it with jjk characters... and now we have this thing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

yeah i'm chatty today

---

so on a completely unrelated note, the day before yesterday i went kayaking and there were all these playful seal pups that kept coming right up to my kayak, they look like undead sea puppies, they've got the blackest most abyssal eyes, they seriously look like undead things sticking their heads up out of the water and staring at you. they're fucking adorable. and they had me surrounded and kept nudging my kayak and swimming upside-down underneath and scratching at it, and then i was trying to carefully paddle away to catch up with my group that was leaving me behind and for a while the undead sea puppies were following me.
apparently they didn't do that to anyone else in my group so i dunno if they just rlly liked the cyan color of my kayak or if it was that i actually pulled my paddle up out of the water and was just chillin there while nobody else in my group did that, i wasn't actually paying attention to them bc i was so distracted watching the curious playful abyssal-eyed seal pups, i didn't even realize i was getting totally left behind lol. honestly i would've been kinda fine getting kidnapped into undead sea puppy society but ah well

Chapter 49: Kenjaku & Mahito: Play Date

Notes:

wine was a rosé of pinot gris, the song it tasted like was Melanie Martinez - Play Date

Melanie Martinez is honestly the artist who comes up the most for whites and rosés, like Aviators is the artist who comes up the most for reds. just something about the vibes that i just haven't found anywhere else

ever since starting that jjk college au i've been kinda obsessed with Kenjaku/Mahito, their dynamic is just *cheff's kiss*
well. up until the end, in canon. haha.
well, Kenjaku's betrayal was totally in character, but Mahito's reaction there at the end with Yuji was so weird. bruh Mahito is not Light Yagami. it was just so out of character with Mahito's reactions to everything else ever

haha anyways. as i always forget to say, thank you for all the kudos and i hope you enjoy

---

Sometimes Mahito was right there, but he felt so far away. So Kenjaku said Hey, come on over closer, there are some games I want to play.

So Mahito came, and he came, and he came.

When it came to games, Mahito just couldn’t stay away, couldn’t give up, couldn’t ever have enough.

Just Kenjaku and him and him and Kenjaku alone, because nobody else was the same.

---

They were just playing hide and seek, but sometimes it felt hard to breathe. Under the sheets, but what did it mean? It was just hide and seek.

Sometimes Kenjaku didn’t want to play any games. Sometimes he was tired of chasing, always chasing after Mahito.

Tag, you’re It.

But Mahito never chased him back. He just kept running, running away, until Kenjaku said Hey, come on over closer, there are some games I want to play.

And then Mahito came, and he came, and he came.

Because when it came to games, Mahito just couldn’t stay away, couldn’t give up, couldn’t ever have enough.

Kenjaku was just a play date to him.

---

Kenjaku didn’t give a fuck about him anyways. Whoever said he gave a shit about Mahito?

Mahito never shared his toys or communicated.

Mahito was just a play date to Kenjaku, too.

---

Mahito would wake up in Kenjaku’s bedroom but there was nothing to say.

When Kenjaku tried to talk, Mahito was always playing board games.

Sometimes Kenjaku wished he had monopoly over Mahito’s mind.

But Mahito was always thinking about Yuji, the son of Kenjaku’s womb, all the time.

---

Kenjaku didn’t give a fuck about him anyways. Whoever said he gave a shit about Mahito?

It was all according to plan, it was all just a perfect play date.

Mahito was just the Queen of Kenjaku’s chess game.

---

Ring around the Rosie,
Pocket full of posies,
Ashes, ashes,
We all fall down!

A song, a game, for the Plague. ‘Ring around the Rosie’ for the itchy rash around the infected sore of a person sick with the plague; ‘Pocket full of posies’ for the flower petals that plague doctors showered upon their deceased patients which also helped to ward off their odor; ‘Ashes, ashes’ for the cremated remains of the deceased; ‘We all fall down!’ for We all die!

Games weren’t all just fun and games.

Sometimes games were life.

And so, sometimes games were death.

---

Ring around the Rosie, sometimes Kenjaku had to curb his ambitions.

He just never knew, could never tell what Mahito needed.

Ring around the Rosie, sometimes Kenjaku just wanted to be the one to give Mahito what he needed.

But it was always Yuji, Yuji, Yuji.

How perfect! How according to plan! Things couldn’t have gone more Kenjaku’s way!

Whoever said he gave a fuck about Mahito anyway?

To Mahito, he was just a play date.

To Kenjaku, Mahito was just a play date, too.

A play date, and the Queen of his chess game.

---

Mahito woke up in Kenjaku’s bedroom but there was nothing to say.

All either of them ever did was play games. They never shared their toys or communicated. Hide and seek under the covers, but it never meant anything. It was all just a game, all just a play date. They never cared about each other anyway.

---

If Kenjaku hadn’t given a fuck about Mahito, he wouldn’t have done all for him that he did.

Guess it was time that he faced the truth.

But if he shared his toys, would Mahito stay?

Kenjaku wasn’t in a rush to end this play date.

But for Mahito it was always Yuji, Yuji, Yuji who had monopoly over Mahito’s mind.

And it was all according to Kenjaku’s plan. All according to plan.

---

Who ever said he gave a shit about Mahito anyways?

Always chasing, chasing, but it was so tiring. Kenjaku was tired of these games.

Mahito was just the Queen of his chess game to him.

Better use him to make that Check Mate so he could finally bring this game to an end.

Finally bring this play date to an end.

Notes:

feelings? what are those?

Kenjaku and Mahito don't have anyyyyyy

jkjkjk

anyways sometimes double entendres are too good to pass up. interpret how you want lol

Chapter 50: bonus art: Kenjaku & Mahito

Notes:

special 50th chapter bonus art!! bc i have brainrot for these two rn and i felt like drawing rather than writing. so here, i am now not just inflicting you with my writing, but with my art as well :))

mwahahaha (i mean, i don't consider myself to be as good of an artist as i am a writer - some insecurity there lol - but it's fun anyways and i like to practice and try to get better)

just finished this earlier I AM HYPER TODAY

and i need more Mahito and Kenny in my life pls

Notes:

also on my tumblr here :)

idk i always think it's cool whenever i get to see both someone's art and writing, and quality of either aside i find that the style of each always reflects the other and it's just fun to see

Chapter 51: Nobara: Boss Bitch

Notes:

wine was a rosé, the song it tasted like was Doja Cat - Boss Bitch

and this rosé was srsly the same color as Doja Cat’s hair for the music video of this song haha. just, y'know, more translucent

finally a Nobara chapter!! ok ngl, i liked Nobara at the beginning but then kinda fell out of any liking for her - but writing this piece, and then reading the most recent manga chapter, has made me like her a whole lot more

this song is so her

---

Nobara wasn’t trying to be cool like the rest of the girls. They looked so stupid in their high heel shoes. Yeah, she was clumsy and had made friends with the floor. That was why she knew the floor would always be there to catch her and to push up off of. What were you without the ground? Falling forever, that’s what. So you’d better get acquainted. Go on, kiss the ground. Make friends. Like Gilgamesh and Enkidu, kiss and make friends, go on, don’t act like you aren’t gay because you are, everyone is. Some have just realized and everyone else is just in denial. If everyone of the other gender had died, would you fuck your own gender? Hell yeah you would. You’re horny and desperate like that. Everyone is.

Except maybe Megumi, he seemed asexual as hell. Probably aromantic too. Would he fuck a girl or a guy in the right circumstance? Yeah, probably. Anyone would. But until that very extenuating circumstance he was boring in a different kind of way from everyone else.

Megumi was too serious. Yuji was too ridiculous. Gojo was too much glitter and too much ice combined. But everyone was too much something. Too much something, and not enough of something else. That was how everyone was.

Hell, Nobara hated that: the way people thought you should be perfect, as if perfect was even a thing that existed. Yeah, she was a bitch. And fuck you, because she was also a boss. She was the whole damn cake and the cherry on top and the icing that got everywhere when your best friend shoved the whole damn cake in your face. Hey, happy birthday, bitch. You aren’t here to party? Wake up, the party goes on with or without you. If you aren’t gonna dance, then fall on your ass. Or go on and do both, like Nobara did, because she wasn’t gonna row row row the boat merrily down the stream, life wasn’t but a dream so she wasn’t gonna go go go with the flow, she wasn’t gonna backbend till she touched her toes. Who the hell was that flexible, anyway? Only a freak like Gojo who did the fucking splits like it was as normal as tying his shoes. And his lips sure shone like gloss because he glossed them up and then smiled with it. Yeah, he was a bitch, but he was also a boss. If she learned anything from her teacher, it was that.

Yeah, she learned from Gojo to be the after, not the before. To be the stallion, not the seahorse. To not worry about the report, not worry about the press run. To hit all her bad pics like she hit all her best ones. To be advanced and get that advance. To go on and do her dance and cancel her plans. To reply to every criticism with the equivalent of Boo, don’t be mad, you had the chance, but you dropped it so I took it and I ran for it.

And when they throw money on the floor, wanting more, boss bitch go on and dance on it. Shine sun-bright, give them a tan from it.

Yeah, she was a bitch and a boss and she shone like gloss.

When it came to Gojo Satoru’s students, she was the one who had learned from him best.

Notes:

i srsly need to write more with her, cuz wow. she's crazy. so fun.

Chapter 52: Mei Mei: Bussin

Notes:

this was actually written for the same rosé as the previous chapter, but once again i wanted to keep writing, so i found another song that fit well enough

the song for this chapter was Bemax - Bussin

---

Mei Mei knew she was the bomb, and she was ready to blow it. Yeah, check out her drip, come close, let her show it.

When she walked in, all eyes were on her.

They loved it when she swung her hips.

And when she swung her ax, they feared it.

As they should.

She was bussin’ and she knew it.

Pay her that cold hard cash, cold and hard as her heart that made them hate her even while they were attracted to her.

She was a slaughter and sex machine. As long as you paid all the coins.

Give it to her cold and hard. That was how she wanted it.

People and their sentimentalities, she’d never understand it.

Relationships based on anything other than money. Love and care. What were those but sparkly saccharine fantasies meant to delude and manipulate?

People who bought into that were people who paid for it and got used by it.

You couldn’t trust anything you couldn’t hold tangibly in your hands, couldn’t see in the numbers in your digital wallet.

Relying on people through love and trust and faith? Idiots like that were asking to be used like tools and have their hearts broken.

They were all fools, but sometimes they were cute, when they were that way for her. Like Ui Ui. Absolute darling that she’d kill in a heartbeat if someone paid her more than he was worth. Except that he was priceless, because there were some things that money just couldn't buy.

She only believed in relationships based on money: her relationship with Ui Ui was one that made her money, because she could use him, more than anyone else would ever let her use them, because Ui Ui understood her. That was exactly why he admired her.

She didn’t really mind when others loved her, so long as they didn’t need her to love them. Because she wouldn’t, and she never would. As long as they could understand that, like Ui Ui, and still lover her, then she’d keep them, for as long as they were worth it. Ui Ui was.

A lot of people hated her because of that. She didn’t care one bit. They’d still pay her if they needed her, and she’d still do what she was paid for. If they didn’t pay her for anything? She didn’t care at all.

People thought strength was power, especially in the sorcerer world.

Oh no. Money was power. Whether you were a sorcerer or a monkey, that didn’t matter.

Money, money, money. With money, you could get anything and everything in the world.

Human beings were greedy by nature. For money—

But even more so for sex. It was ingrained in human nature more than anything else. That animal instinct to procreate and survive as a species.

She didn’t even necessarily need to have sex to capitalize on it. Although she did, sometimes, when the price was right. But wearing a dress that hugged and accentuated all her curves just right could get her so much with spending a single cent.

Humans were base creatures, with their insatiable needs for love and sex.

She was above all of that. A higher being, if you will.

The future of humanity was money, money, money.

Whether you were a sorcerer or a monkey, that didn’t change.

Money bought everything.

Anyone who said that money couldn’t buy happiness didn’t know how to use money right.

Most people had their values in all the wrong places.

Give her cold hard cash, and you could have her her fighting or you could have her fucking. But you’d be the one with your soul sucked dry while she walked away with everything.

Yeah, she was bussin’ and she knew it.

Come close, check out her drip, let her show it. Let her make you drool over it, till your money was landing on the floor at her feet.

All eyes were on her whenever she walked in, because she was bussin’. Yeah, watch her throw it. For the right price, of course. And people always paid it. They could see what she was worth, because she showed it.

She knew was the bomb, and she was ready to blow it.

As long as you paid the right price for her services.

She’d be leaving with a stack of cash in her teeth, and you’d be on your knees that much poorer and not even realizing the detriment of it, too satisfied with what she’d given.

Humans were base creatures, so slave to desires of the flesh.

She was so far above that.

All she wanted was cold hard cash, so that she could buy absolutely anything, and never be subject to the power of anyone.

Her innate technique might be weak, but she never would be.

Notes:

just in case anyone reading this has been hoping for Junpei/&Mahito content, i recently wrote a thing for him Psycho (Where Moonlight and Darkness Blur is the Truth of the Night)

which i am totally allowed to self-advertise bc self-advertising fics isn't unallowed the way self-advertising original works that have to be bought is~

although you can actually get my original dark literary fantasy novels for free on the Thinklings Books website, under the agreement that you're supposed to leave a review on Amazon, but it's not exactly like they can force you...

i've had so many ppl irl tell me so many times i should mention my original novels that i've mentioned, only to have so many ppl on this site tell me so many times that i'm not supposed to mention that shit bc it goes against ao3 rules, so i don't even know anymore lmao. but access is on my profile, up until anyone tells me i can't post it there, either. but gawd i am so tired of ppl irl telling me absolutely need to mention this shit and then ppl telling me here that i'm not supposed to because it's advertising even though it doesn't rlly make me money at all because royalties are nothing and even though ppl irl are saying i should mention it because of the money thing which isn't anything i only end up mentioning it just in case ppl might actually enjoy it bc all i want is for ppl who enjoy my writing to get to enjoy more of it. but what am i supposed to do with this??

but it doesn't cost you anything or give me any money or anything else if you look at my other fanfics that are on this site, so there's no reason not to check those out 😈

right??

right... so i don't even know why i'm even self-advertising... except that i just want ppl to enjoy it and a lot of ppl may not see a thing that's posted once and gets buried and then isn't mentioned anywhere else ever, so i'm just mentioning, just in case anyone who is seeing this here might be interested but didn't see it outside of this ??

don't sue me for any of this, i legit have no money. you can fight me if you want, though. since fighting is fun an' all...

hilarious that this chapter was Mei Mei and so focused on the importance of money, when i am absolutely terrible with money myself lol. fuck, writing is what i love most but you legit can't make a living with that, to be a successful author in this day and age you have to be good with social media and i'm not, i hate social media. i just want to write stories, why do i have to be a person on top of that??

haha

so just the other day got officially diagnosed with ADHD tho, and learned that ADHD brains like mine are interest based while non-ADHD brains like Mei Mei's (as just one example who happens to be relevant here) are importance-based, which was super eye-opening to me. i had never understood how others were able to do things that i couldn't, and always thought that i just somehow couldn't try hard enough... but it turns out that people who don't have ADHD are just able to prioritize via importance while ppl with ADHD are only able to prioritize by either interest or outside-imposed deadlines

which!! brings me to my other self-fic-promotion: the jjk modern day college AU i started, Gathering Cumulonimbi, in which i will be researching more about ADHD, among other subjects, both in regards to mental health and other things

my hope is that it might be interesting/helpful to at least a few ppl

altho admittedly i am mostly writing it for myself, in order to get myself to research things that i wouldn't be able to get myself to research if i didn't have a story forcing me to be interested in them and actually research them, since my brain is entirely interest-based and most of that interest is focused entirely on my story ideas, as it happens

so i'm just... trying to help myself. but i hope that it helps a few others out there, too

bc then, at least my existence did something in this world, and wasn't entirely pointless

excuse my actually legitimately eternal existential depression :))

Chapter 53: Naobito: Like a Cat

Notes:

ngl i keep neglecting to post the chapters i have for this mostly bc i don't want to have to deal with typing up author notes bc the self-loathing is rlly bad rn, i am so sick of myself lol. but my writing makes me sad when it just languishes on my laptop... and i'm depressed enuf as it is so here i am again haha

wine for this chapter was a rlly soft and silky cabernet sauvignon, the song it tasted like was Nadia Kazmi - Like a Cat

From the jjk wiki: Naobito is knowledgeable about how anime is made because of his hobby [of watching anime]. Originally, his technique is derived from the video medium and cameras. The brush up from film to 24-frame anime happened during Naobito’s generation.

---

Naobito was sleeping like a cat in the afternoon, belly up in a patch of sun through the window on the tatami floor, only to wake up like a ghost in the night and he didn’t even know why.

It must be the booze and the heartache he couldn’t seem to shake.

Crying in the night without any tears, just sake on his tongue and beer and maybe whiskey if it had been an especially bad day.

Well-spent days brought happy sleep, but he was always sleeping like a cat in the afternoon, belly up in the sun trying to dry himself up, only to wake up in the middle of the night like a ghost crying without any tears, reaching for more booze.

Lying there on the floor like the dead with his favorite record on, a crooning purring song, his eyes closed until the night came on, feeling tired with days full of nothing. Like a vampire, still alive like he was so young while he was getting old.

It was hard to explain why, hard to explain the heartache, even to himself. He hadn’t even had an innate technique until he’d made himself one, just a thing he’d done out of curiosity after watching anime, wondering if it was possible to move in 24 frames per second. And then there was his brother’s jealousy, becoming clan head, so many sons that were disappointments and then one who was a bona fide genius and had the technique that Naobito had created but actually innate, but who ended up so misguided, idolizing a failure who would never be recognized by anyone. And there were all these internal Zen’in politics, and all these external sorcerer clan politics, and there were the Gojos being goddamned annoying all the fucking time, and there was Gojo Satoru the Six Eyes especially making everything even more annoying while his genius son Naoya idolized him like he idolized Toji, and why did Naobito’s life have to be this way?

There wasn’t any way he could explain the heartache. So he just reached again and again for booze, sleeping like a cat in the afternoon sun and waking like a ghost when the night came, feeling like a vampire, so young while he was getting so old.

Thank whatever god that Naoya wasn’t there to see Toji’s ghost. Naobito’s arm may have been 70 years old, but it was still going to cost that so-called ‘Dagon’, as if curses deserved to have names. Hell, he’d help Toji just to take that special-grade spirit down.

Blame the booze and the heartache that he just couldn’t seem to shake, but booze had kept him alive for most of those 70 years, and heartache had kept him sleeping like a cat in the afternoon with his belly up in the sun, waking up like a ghost in the night just to hear his brother curse him or his favorite son cry for someone nobody would ever see.

Not many sorcerers lived to be Naobito’s age still exorcising. They either died early, or they retired early. There wasn’t anyone else like Naobito, who lived past 70 and was still exorcising.

Blame the booze for covering the heartache he could never shake, because he had graced this world with his vampiric existence for over 70 years, unlike his favorite son who was too brilliant for this world and would be dying so much younger than he.

Naoya was Naobito’s only son worth anything; Naoya was a genius.

Naoya was too smart for his own good, and would never be able to dumb himself down with booze like Naobito did.

So Naobito slept like a cat in the afternoon, sleeping in the sun with his belly up, and tried not to pay attention to the world beyond what he had to, filed away his heartache like paperwork and cried without any tears, because a well-spent day brought happy sleep.

Why did people sleep in the dark and cold of the night, when they could sleep in the warmth of the sunlight?

Naobito would never understand.

He’d awake like a ghost in the night just to move to stay warm, while Naoya in his bed shivered because he wasn’t built like everyone else because he’d inherited the technique that Naobito had made up while watching anime and imagining what was possible.

But imagining what was possible would never change the way of the world.

Notes:

given that Naoya's my fav jjk character and Naobito also has Projection Sorcery and other notable similarities i have so many headcanons abt this man and also his relationship with his Naoya vs. his other sons. and also abt Projection Sorcerery itself. altho at this point all my headcanons abt Projection Sorcery are scattered throughout my jjk fics... but one that's referenced here is that they get cold easily if they're not actively moving bc more of their metabolism goes to 'useful work' like body movements/physical energy rather than being turned into body heat. also that they have some adhd type stuff going on, lotta energy and difficulty focusing on anything they're not interested in but able to hyper-focus on what they are interested in, like anime or their projections when they're using their technique

Chapter 54: Kenjaku: Sands of Time

Notes:

before i for whatever temporal duration lose my nerve again: another chapter!

wine for this piece was a chenin blanc, the song it tasted like was Egzod - Sands of Time and the white wine was legitimately the same color as the sand on that song cover lol

---

Everything always got buried in the sands of time, rarely had its dead dehydrated remnants unearthed. And even then, all that was unearthed was the ruins, the bones; never again would the world see the living glory of what had passed.

Never again would the world see the living terror of what had passed.

Never again would the world see the living disappointment of what had passed.

All of it buried in the sands of time. Every person that Kenjaku had been; every person that Kenjaku had killed; every person that Kenjaku had kissed. All of it just for fun, never meaning anything. Not when they would all just descend beneath the blowing sands of time, entombed and mummified. Not even Kenjaku remembered all the names. Sometimes he barely even remembered all the games.

Very few things, very few individuals, made their marks in his memory. The only reason he remembered so keenly his time as Kamo Noritoshi was because the world had never forgotten it. Before Kamo Noritoshi had even been buried, he’d already become a legend: The most terrible sorcerer in all of sorcerer history.

If Kenjaku was truly the most terrible sorcerer in all of sorcerer history, then sorcerer history was very, very boring. A complete disappointment, really. Although really, the only reason Kamo Noritoshi achieved that nomenclature, rather than Ryomen Sukuna, was because sorcerer history immortalized Sukuna as the King of Curses, so terrible was he that they couldn’t even accept his status as a sorcerer, they had to make him not just a curse but the king of them.

Next to that, the title of Worst Sorcerer in Sorcerer History was nothing, really. Although it was indeed a tale that traversed over the sands of time like a sandship, tattered and weathered over the years but glorified in its terror nonetheless, for the more decrepit it became, the more terrible it also became.

Back then, what Kamo Noritoshi had done was not anywhere near so terrible as what those of the present took it that he had done.

Everything was buried beneath the sands of time, and then everyone who unearthed any of it make such grand acclamations over the ruins and bones, spinning up stories of grandeur and horror that never existed in any such form as was to be believed by their words.

Humans were transient creatures, which made them fools. Such short foresight, nearly none at all, and their gaze into the past was even worse, for they could never understand that history did not change with them.

They were the ones who changed history to suit them.

Humans were hilarious, really.

And so, so boring.

Kenjaku had been so many of them, had known so many of them, had gotten into the heads of so many of them in all kinds of ways, and this was what he took from it:

Times changed, society changed, but humans never did. They took different forms, but they were all the same. Just like he took different forms, but was always the same.

He was the most human of everyone, really. As an immortal, who changed with the times—something other humans would never be able to do—he had to be.

The most human of them all, and the most alive of them all, for everyone else insisted on dying with their epoch, on dying with their worldview, but he, he always changed himself to suit the world, he always changed himself to live and thrive.

What did he care for morals? Those were but societal rules and agreements, and were buried beneath the shifting sands of time with the rest, as new morals, new societal rules and agreements, rose in their place.

Humans were such short-sighted, pitiable creatures. All thinking themselves so important, when all of them were nothing but another grain of sand in the shifting desert of existence on earth.

What humans did didn’t matter at all, really. The sands of time would always bury it. Something else, something new, would always rise from it.

Kenjaku just eventually got impatient. Things weren’t changing, weren’t shifting fast enough for the ever-shifting immortal that he had become. He shed skins so easily, so quickly and so completely, and the world around him was so slow to follow suit, so slow to change and so unimaginative in its changes.

Kenjaku had lived through so much predictable history, absolutely none of it actually interesting.

What was the condition of being human and alive if not to imagine something as possible and bring it fruition?

Kenjaku got impatient.

The sands of time always shifted, everything always got buried beneath it—but it happened slowly, in the human eye.

And in the end, Kenjaku was just as human, if not more human, than anybody.

He got impatient. He got reckless. He got drastic. He rushed things. He got desperate.

In the end, the most fun he ever had was playing improv with a comedian.

Go figure.

Only with something like improv was everything always changing, everything always up in the air like sand throw up towards the sun, only with comedy was everything as irreverent as the truth of the world made everything.

Improvised comedy was the closest one could get to being truly, fully alive, without any lies. Since in improvised comedy, everything was an act and a lie, and that was exactly what made reality. Reality was all acts, all lies, all agreements on what was true and what was false. Just like improvised comedy. Everyone involved had to agree to the rules and play along with them.

That was the was life worked, as a human, no matter the age, no matter the sands of time. It was just that it different eras, there were different rules that one had to follow in order to play along. And Kenjaku was very, very good at playing those rules.

Improvised comedy was all that human life was, in the end.

Kenjaku had had some fun, there at the end. And that was a whole lot more than most everyone else could say. Everyone else always took things so seriously, never realizing.

That none of it mattered, because it would all be buried beneath the sands of time like it had never been there at all.

Whether you saw the world as a comedy or a tragedy, that was up to you. Maybe in a way both were true.

But those who saw life as a comedy laughed and lived, while those who saw life as a tragedy cried and died.

So go on: take a side.

Kenjaku had chosen his.

The entire rest of the world could choose theirs; he didn’t care.

He, like everything and everyone else, would just be buried beneath the sands of time.

Who knew how many of his countless names would ever be remembered.

It didn’t matter to him anyway.

They’d all been him—and yet none of them had been him, not really.

He was something that couldn’t be understood by any single epoch.

If you tried to look at him through a single lens, you would never grasp him—

Only if you looked at him through the lenses of several centuries of an ever-changing society would you ever understand what he had been.

And human beings, as short-lived and short-sighted as they were, would never be capable of that.

To understand Kenjaku, you would have to understand infinity: everything in the past and everything in the future existing so fully that the present meant nothing.

Everything, always, buried beneath the sands of time, with only rarely ruins and bones uncovered only to be aggrandized into something they’d never been.

You’d never understand the past. And you’d never know the future. All you’d ever have was the present.

And yet you’d never appreciate it.

So was the curse of being human.

And Kenjaku had been just as, if not more, human than anyone.

Notes:

i legitimately love this dude, i historically have such a thing for immortal characters, i love the broad nihilistic perspective they necessarily have haha. mortal vs. immortal perspectives are rlly interesting to me

Chapter 55: Suguru: Keep Yourself Away

Notes:

this one was written for the same chenin blanc, i once again didn't want to stop writing so looked for a different song that fit, found Egzod - Keep Yourself Away feat. Caiti Patton

took me forever to get this one up bc i rlly liked the content of what i'd written but i couldn't find a way to make it less clunky, so i'd edit it a bit every now and then before giving up again, but i've finally given up for real lol so here it finally is, since i came on here to post a new fic anyway (i've now posted over 900k of jjk fanfiction! going for the 1m hell yeah)

thank you for all the kudos and the comments, and i hope you enjoy and/or get something out of this!

---

Maybe Suguru had the opposite of the Mitus Touch, and everything he touched just turned to rust.

When did he become the thing that was keeping him from sleep? When did he become the very thing he used to hide from underneath the sheets?

No one tells you you’re going to become a monster someday.

No one tells you how to keep yourself away.

“Pop another one” was the most that they’d say. Medicate yourself till you couldn’t see anything, because you couldn’t feel anything. Like his parents had wanted him to, because he could see monsters that nobody else saw.

No one tells you you’re going to become a monster someday.

No one tells you how to keep yourself away.

“Pop another one,” was what they said. “That’s how you’re gonna keep yourself at bay.”

He didn’t want to live like that.

His curiosity outweighed his will—

so he slipped off his skin and he sunk right in.

They had their vices, and Suguru had his.

It was just a matter of time.

When did he become the thing that was keeping him from sleep? When did he become the very thing he used to hide from underneath the sheets?

No one tells you you’re going to become a monster someday.

No one tells you how to keep yourself away.

“Pop another one,” was all that they’d ever say.

But he didn’t want to live that way.

His curiosity outweighed his will, so he slipped off his skin and he sunk right in.

He slipped off his skin, and he sunk right in.

No one tells you you’re going to become a monster someday.

Maybe Suguru had the opposite of the Mitus Touch, and everything he touched just turned to rust.

What he had with his family, what he had with Satoru, what he had with everyone else—

In the end, it all just turned to rust.

No one tells you how to keep yourself away, except to “Pop another one.”

Maybe that was what Suguru should have done. Just to keep himself at bay.

But he could never have lived that way.

So when did he become the thing that was keeping him from sleep? When did he become the very thing he used to hide from underneath the sheets?

No one tells you you’re going to become a monster someday.

But at least, as the monster, he was no longer so afraid.

No one tells you how to keep yourself away, except to “Pop another one.” Medicate yourself till you’re not even yourself anymore, because you’re drifting far away.

But he never learned how to keep himself away. “Pop another one” never appealed to him anyway.

They had their vices, he had his.

And he’d rather be the terror than the terrorized, would rather be the feared than the afraid, would rather be the horror than the horrified.

It was only a matter of time before he slipped off his skin and he sunk right in with the most grieved grin, becoming the very thing he used to hide from underneath the sheets, the very thing that used to keep him from sleep, that very thing that used to be so very frightening.

No one tells you you’re going to become a monster someday.

But you’ll become one anyway.

Chapter 56: Kenjaku: Roses

Notes:

wine was a tannat, song was SAINt JHN, Imanbek - Roses - Imanbek Remix

and yes it's Kenny agaiiiiinnn haha

---

Dark velvet red with heady scent and sharp dark curved thorns—romancing was simple.

A bouquet of roses, rosé and lit candles on the table.

If you were a man romancing a woman, it was that simple. Wife her for a sultry winter and then let her go, fall away like petals of a wilted rose.

And oh, she’d miss you for when you were there and curse you once you were gone.

---

Dark satin red dress with sweet perfume, leaning your body into its curves—romancing was simple.

Perfume of roses, rosé on the table and cleavage showing.

If you were a woman romancing a a man, it was that simple. Husband him for a foxy summer and then let him go, slip away like a kitsune at dawn.

And oh, he’d miss you for when you were there and curse you once you were gone.

---

Dark red glossy lips and nails and a man’s clothes when nobody else knows—romancing was simple.

A bouquet of roses, rosé and lit candles on the table.

If you were a woman romancing a woman, it was that simple. Wife her and husband her, do it for a spring and then let her go, fade away like mist in the sun.

And oh, she’d miss you for when you were there and curse you once you were gone.

---

Dark red splatters of blood on your skin and a white tank top wet with sweat—romancing was simple.

Thorned stems no roses, cleavage showing like aerobics.

If you were a man romancing a man, it was that simple. Husband him for an erotic autumn and then let him go, gust away like dead leaves in the wind.

And oh, he’d miss you for when you were there and curse you once you were gone.

---

Life was short, so make the most of it.

Kenjaku had lived so many lives. Those lives had all been short, so he’d made the most of them. And then moved on to the next.

He’d done been through it all.

Romancing was simple, and he’d done it because he could. Because he could, and he was curious.

Until he’d done it so many times that he didn’t care to anymore, because he’d done been through it all and it had all become the same, nothing about it interesting anymore.

Life was short, so make the most of it.

Roses and rosé and tits like roses, lips like rosé, fuck the waters.

Romancing was so simple it wasn’t even interesting anymore.

Humans were such simple creatures.

---

Kenjaku had never romanced a cursed spirit before.

This could be interesting, he thought.

Roses and rosé didn’t mean anything to Mahito.

But neither did condoms, pregnancy or STDs.

Maybe Kenjaku would just fuck with him raw, wearing a Buddhist priest’s clothes, doing aerobics just to flex like it was a game that didn’t mean anything.

Mahito didn’t expect anything from him. No roses, no dresses, no candles, no blood, no skin, no sex.

How would you romance a being that wouldn’t know romance if it snogged him?

That was what Kenjakku was now so curious to know. Was it even possible? To romance a cursed spirit, rather than a human?

Whether he succeeded or failed, it would still be something new.

Life was short, so make the most of it.

Kenjaku had lived ever so many lives.

But none of them anything quite like this.

Notes:

it's not not compliant with canon... seems like something Kenny would try to do just for fun to do something new. probly totally didn't work tho but maybe he amused himself trying

Chapter 57: Toji: Bandage

Summary:

Toji's in a bad mood

Notes:

i've been writing these but haven't been posting bc life's been stressing me the fuck out and i've barely been on ao3, so i have so many of these saved up from like so long ago now and i barely remember some of this but hi i'm here for at least a bit i guess

my notes for this chapter were the following: "mystery red emergency wine bc i can’t sleep and it’s making me crazy frustrated which means i’m restless and active as hell but my ankles and knees and wrists are all tender rn so ofc everything i was doing and couldn’t stop doing was just making it all worse now everything fucking hurts"

i only very vaguely remember any of this, honestly only barely, this was from before i got on adderall lol like wow it helps so much for the adhd it's crazy, too bad it's only lasts a few hours and then afterwards i lose everything again

anyways

the song the wine tasted like was Night Lovell - Bandage

---

Why did they do that, huh?

Okay, shit. Women always got that way in the end, acting like they were on his side but they were just trying to tie him down and control him.

He’d broken out of the system. Now he was never letting anyone take his freedom.

He’d given a woman the chance, once. With the marriage thing. It hadn’t turned out well. At least it had gotten him a change in last name.

But fuck, he didn’t need any of that shit. He made a million making a killing. Yeah he might have been a failure, but now he was walking around with grace.

Yeah, women really wanted all this. Hell yeah they did, he was the best, bitch. That was probably why they always wanted to hold him down. Fuck that. He wouldn’t let that fly.

Always sooner rather than later, it was time to say goodbye. Pack up his few belongings or else leave them, he didn’t have anything that wasn’t replaceable.

He knew the truth to life. There wasn’t any threat in sight.

You were always a prisoner to your own mind, but the jailer of your mind was also always you. If you got stuck, it was because you yourself were keeping yourself stuck in that place. He’d kept himself prisoner of the Zen’in clan for far too long, before realizing that there was nothing but him keeping him from leaving.

Now he never imprisoned himself in that way. Now he never let anything keep him from walking away. If they tried to lock the door, he just kicked it down. He was more than strong enough.

Nice try.

Know your fucking place.

He was the best, bitch.

Womens’ love was always black and white. They took your hand all soft and sweet but then took a bite and clamped their teeth. Fuck that.

If they wouldn’t let go, he’d just shove his fist down their throat so they were forced to let go.

They were real nice at first, though. When they were seducing you, before they were trying to cage and leash you.

He wasn’t a dog, bitch. Not anymore.

He wasn’t anything more than a stray cat, and he’d come and go as he pleased.

Woman, you couldn’t fix him, he was scarred he wasn’t wounded, this shit didn’t need any bandage.

If you see a man with scars, it doesn’t mean he’s weak and hurt. It means he’s strong because he survived.

Women, he would never understand them.

They sure were nice in bed, though.

But once they tried to slide that glass door shut—

It was time to pack up all his stuff.

He had the money if he needed to pay for a hotel or even buy a place of his own—but he never needed to, because there was always another woman eager to take him home, bed him until she made the mistake of thinking she could make a pet of him.

Hey, bitch, he was a scarred tomcat, not an abused dog.

Know the fucking difference, bitch.

Chapter 58: Suguru: Ghost Town

Notes:

since i feel kinda bad abt that last chapter being Toji in such a bad mood, here's the next chapter - which is Suguru being an emo edgelord, so maybe not a whole lot better, but oh well lol(?)

this wine was 68% Mourvèdre 28% Grenache 12% Syrah

the song it tasted like was AleXZavesa - Ghost Town

i could barely understand the lyrics for this one so i kinda made most of it up lol

---

Walking walking ghost town—

So many things had died in him this night.

So many things were dead in him from now on.

Walking walking ghost town—

Satoru was just another ghost.

The only thing that made him different from the others

was that he was the only blue-eyed ghost.

Walking walking ghost town—

So many cursed spirits crawled in him.

So many cursed spirits flocked to him.

‘Mommy, hug me…’

He swallowed them down.

Walking walking ghost town—

Eerie, haunted, liminal spaces.

Quiet, so quiet, except for the susurrus

the soft cacophony of cursed spirits whispering

and screaming without sound.

Walking walking ghost town—

It was just like a god, right?

To want to remake the world in his image.

Kill all the monkeys, turn their cities to ghost cities.

Everything quiet except for the cursed spirits munching

the cursed spirits screaming as he swallowed them down.

Walking walking ghost town—

‘Mommy, hug me…’

Your mommy’s dead, sonny.

Now there’s only me.

Walking walking ghost town—

He was so empty, abandoned, vacant.

So come inside and make yourself at home,

populate his ghost town with your ghosts.

Chapter 59: Naoya & Toji: Gold (Stupid Love)

Notes:

Naoya is canonically gay for Toji and i cannot be convinced otherwise

lol

this is not my favorite piece but ah well, these are all just silly little things i wrote while drunk so i need to stop being so hard on myself.

the wine for this one was a sauvignon blanc and the song it reminded me of was Excision, ILLENIUM, Shallows - Gold (Stupid Love)

---

Is it stupid that I love you? Naoya wondered, as Toji just walked away.

Two choices on his mind: either follow, or stay.

In the end, he couldn’t let go of control.

He would always give way to control.

He had to stay.

But still he tried to follow anyway. To stand by Toji’s side, even if one of them died.

Just let go and enjoy the ride, he told himself. Because it was all gold.

Loving Toji, it was all gold, and it was all good.

Still he was holding on too tight—

Should he walk on the cut glass? Should he run to the forest?

Should he stand in the fire? Should he hide from this moment?

Two choices on his mind, but there was only ever one answer.

He walked on the cut glass. He didn’t run to the forest.

He stood in the fire. He didn’t hide from this moment.

Because it was all gold.

The light on the cut glass. The sun outside the forest.

The flames of the fire. The glow of this moment.

It was all gold.

Loving Toji, it was all gold, and it was all good.

How could it be stupid that he loved Toji, when he’d never felt so awake?

Anyone and everyone else would say it was all just a big mistake.

That was exactly how Naoya knew that it wasn’t.

They were always, always wrong.

They were all small fry, and didn’t understand the nature of true strength.

The strength it took Toji to walk away when he wanted to stay; the strength it took Naoya to stay when he wanted to leave.

He was staring hard into the future, only closing his eyes to blink.

He was the Zen’in heir, a jujutsu genius, destined to succeed his father as the Zen’in clan head, destined to become second in the sorcerer world only to Gojo Satoru himself.

Naoya had to stay.

Because how else would Toji’s influence ever be felt in this world that denied and erased him?

Toji was Naoya’s sanctuary, his place to feel and think. To be his own person, owning himself, different from all the rest of them. So different they’d never understand him.

Toji couldn’t stay, so Naoya would stay for him. Make sure they all felt it.

That strength that wads Toji’s.

Naoya had to work for it, work for it.

He knew that Toji would be walking till he found what he was looking for.

But it was inside.

It had always been inside.

Toji was the strongest. He always had been, always would be.

Naoya wondered if Toji ever found it. He wondered if Toji ever realized it.

That what he was looking for had been inside him the entire time.

Was it stupid that Naoya loved him, when Toji had just walked away?

It couldn’t be, when loving Toji was all gold.

The light on the cut glass that shredded his feet. The sun outside the forest that threw dark shadows.

The flames of the fire that enveloped and burned. The glow of this moment that would never return.

When his father died, and he heard that the title of clan head would be going to Megumi, Naoya was scared he would lose it all.

What had he stayed for, if not to make everyone understand the strength that they had denied? The strength with which Toji had walked away from all he’d ever wanted. That exact same reason that Naoya had stayed despite wanting so viciously to leave.

Megumi had never known Toji, and so didn’t know anything.

Naoya just wanted to make them all understand. Understand what they never could, what they couldn’t see in Toji but would have to see in him once he was the head of the Zen’ins and could do more than anyone but Gojo Satoru himself.

Naoya had let Toji just walk away, even though Toji felt like his soulmate.

And why? Why?

Was it all just a big mistake?

He’d just wanted to make them all finally understand the nature of true strength.

And then that was all taken away.

It was all taken away.

But he was holding on too tight to let go. Holding on too tight not to give way to control.

Because loving Toji was all gold. It was all gold, and it was all good.

Walking on the cut glass. Not running to the forest.

Standing in the fire. Not hiding from this moment.

Loving Toji, he’d never felt so awake.

Everything before Toji was just sleepwalking. Everything after Toji was the beginning of living.

Always the beginning, always. There would never be a middle and there would never be an end.

Even after Naoya died, he was awake and alive, loving Toji as he did.

This was the nature of true strength:

You didn’t care if it was stupid. You didn’t care if it was all just a big mistake. You still let it happen.

Because it was all gold.

It was all gold, and it was all good.

Toji walking away when he wanted nothing more than to stay, and Naoya staying when he wanted nothing more than to walk away. Toji’s strength that nobody could see because he was a shadow with zero cursed energy, and Naoya’s strength that nobody could see because he moved in twenty-four frames per second.

Toji had felt like his soulmate. Still Toji had walked away, and Naoya had stayed.

Is it stupid that I love you?

It wasn’t. It wasn’t stupid at all.

Because this love was all gold.

Walking on the cut glass, not running to the forest—

Standing in the fire, feeling all of this moment—

Even dead as a vengeful spirit, Naoya had never felt so alive and so awake.

Always the beginning of living, always.

That was the nature of loving Toji and the nature of true strength.

Always the beginning, never a middle, never an end.

Chapter 60: Megumi, Megumi & Sukuna: As We Fall

Notes:

wine for this one was a cabernet sauvignon, the song it tasted like was League of Legends - As We Fall

this one honestly feels like a companion piece to Chapter 32: Sukuna: Stay Dead

ngl i didn't at all understand Megumi's return to wanting to live from the depression he was sunk into until i wrote this piece

---

All Megumi had wanted was to keep Tsumiki safe.

Now she was dead by his own hand, and he couldn’t hold on any longer.

He’d just let himself drift down to the other side. Maybe the dark water would be safer.

He didn’t know where to go from here. He didn’t know where to take this.

As he fell into the shadow water, he thought it must be okay like this. Death was just the inevitable conclusion of being born.

When it came to matters of life and death, Itadori was an idiot. A complete fool.

There was no right way to die, just like there was no right way to live. You just lived, and then you died.

Megumi’s heart was starting to slow, even as Sukuna’s heart was starting to beat faster.

Was that what it meant to be alive? The rush and the rage that Sukuna was feeling, the hunger and the fury. Was that what life was?

Megumi was falling deeper into the dark shadow water, the blood stains washing underneath the waves.

As he fell, he didn’t know where to go, didn’t know where to take this.

The water had to be safer, as he dove in. Hid from everything, but he could still feel Sukuna’s fire, the brilliant hot glow dancing above the water, living flame to Megumi’s shadow.

Fire always sent shadows dancing.

He didn’t know where to go, he didn’t know where to take this, but as Sukuna was falling, it was like he was reaching out to pull Megumi out of the water. Sukuna scrabbling desperately for the shore throwing Megumi higher.

Was that what life was? That desperate feverish senseless clamber?

There was no reason to it. There was no rationality to it. There was no meaning to it.

It was just desire. To all the world’s pleasure, but even more so to all the world’s pain.

Was that what life was?

Itadori was an idiot, to think there was any meaning to it. Gojo had been an idiot, to try to find any meaning in it when he knew there was none. Maybe Sukuna was the most intelligent, to know that there was none and to embrace it, both in his life and in his death.

As Sukuna fell, Megumi found it throwing him higher. Sharing the same body, they were just a tag-team, weren’t they?

Megumi had fumbled and fell, and Sukuna had taken hold. Now Sukuna had fumbled and fell, and so it was Megumi’s turn.

There was no reason to it. There was no rationality to it. There was no meaning to it.

It was simply life, and life only existed because death did. The very way that every living organism lived was by killing and using others. That was just the way it was.

Megumi accepted that. He wasn’t like Itadori or Gojo. He accepted that life was just a dance with death and death just a dance with life, like light was just a dance with shadow and shadow just a dance with light.

Megumi wasn’t like Itadori or Gojo. He was much more like Sukuna.

There was no rhyme or reason to life, just like there was no rhyme or reason to death. People did whatever they wanted for as long as they were alive, and then they died, and that was the end, and that was it.

But maybe he’d go ahead and live a little more of it. That meaningless life. Exactly because even though there was no reason to do so, there was also no reason not to.

The dark water would always be safer.

But Megumi could stand a little longer in the air and the light.

He didn’t know where to go, and he didn’t know where to take this, but it didn’t matter anyhow.

There was no wrong way to live, just like there was no wrong way to die.

And so he’d live however he felt like, just like Sukuna had done.

Sukuna’s heart was starting to slow, and Megumi’s heart was starting to beat faster.

As the darkness kept trying to pull him under, Megumi held out for the other side, just to experience a little more of the ride.

There was no reason to it. There was no rationality to it. There was no meaning to it.

But that was exactly why there was every reason to live, even though there was no reason to live.

Exactly because there was no reason to die, even though there was every reason to do so.

Death would always come. It was the inevitable end. So Megumi didn’t need to rush it.

He could just let it come when it finally did and he couldn’t prevent it. He didn’t need to seek it.

Death was just part of life.

And so, life was just part of death.

So Megumi would keep living, just to experience more of it, like Sukuna had.

Sukuna, in killing Tsumiki, had destroyed him; but Sukuna, in his continued battle humoring those weaker than him, had enlightened him.

All life was was desperation for more. And all death was was finally succeeding in having too much.

So Megumi would live, realizing he hadn’t had enough quite yet. Not quite yet.

He could still suffer more.

So why not? Tsumiki was already dead. Could anything hurt him more than that?

He’d have to live to see.

Life was hilarious; death was just funny.

That was what he learned, from having Sukuna in his body, raging against a senseless world with all his own senselessness.

There was no rhyme or reason for anything.

That was what made life as beautiful as it was horrific.

There was no rhyme or reason to it—and yet still, it existed.

And so even though there was no rhyme or reason to his existence, Megumi would still exist, too.

His name meant ‘Blessings’. It was funny. Because blessings were just curses in another light, just like curses were just blessings in another light, just like life and death.

His name meant ‘Blessings’, and so Megumi would be that curse. That curse of existence that everyone called a blessing without realizing the true nature of anything.

But Megumi did.

But he’d continue to exist anyway.

Simply because Sukuna had inspired him, and so given him a reason to, and there was no reason not to.

He’d accept that, now.

He’d accept everything.

And see where it brought him, just out of horrifically blessed curiosity.

Chapter 61: Satoru: Flatline

Notes:

wine for this was a montepulciano, the song it tasted like was The Enigma TNG - Flatline

---

Come and get me.

He spoke it silently with bright blue Six Eyes, staring right at them.

As soon as they saw him, they were out of time. Because he’d long already seen them.

He was sick of all their hatred. He’d come to draw the line.

If you’re going to hate me, then FEAR.

Now come and get me.

They never could even move, once he looked at them. They were too paralyzed by his eyes.

He was sickened by their idocy.

They could see, but they were so blind.

All the bullshit that they would speak—it was the killer; it was what they wreaked.

They’d die from biting their own tongues.

He lifted his chin higher; it didn’t matter if they were above him.

Come and get me.

They never could.

They never would.

They hated him until all they knew was fear of him.

He didn’t care. He didn’t give a fuck about what they thought.

Curse them all, he was already on the brink.

Just get him now. Go on.

Come and get me.

He already had to dare his heart to beat, because the devil might as well be sleeping within him, deep.

But there.

Always, always there. Behind bright blue Six Eyes and their paralyzing stare.

Fucked up.

He couldn’t even smile, unless it was fake.

He’d long realized that there would be no justice for him.

He was just waiting to be free from the jaws with which they set their lies.

They thought they were clever, they thought they were brave.

Come and get me.

They’d learn his true face only once his soft flesh and eyes rotted away to reveal the empty shadowed sockets of his deathly skull.

Chapter 62: Satoru about Suguru: Bone

Notes:

a companion piece to the piece following after

this was written for a low-calorie chardonnay, which was hilarious bc bc of the low calorie aspect i totally didn't get the wine variety when my irl tested me, but yeah it messed me up bc it was way more watery than the buttery texture i'm used to from chardonnays, but it tasted like the song So Below - Bone

---

Hey Suguru.

Do you think it’s easy for me? Collapsing here under my dreams.

To each their own, but you never think twice about it.

It’s such a crush just to see your face. It’s all too much just to hear your name.

You’re taking a hit but you always miss the mark, always loving that step in the dark.

It’s getting old. You could shake it off but you don’t.

Am I supposed to believe you could ever give it up for me? I know you won’t.

So this is how it’s going to be. It’s necessary to get what you need.

Hey Suguru, do you think this is easy for me? Collapsing alone under all my dreams.

I bet you never think twice about it.

To each their own, but it gets worse every time I let you go.

It’s such a shame, this mess we’ve made.

Soon you’ll be cold, I’ll have to make it so. But I want you to know:

It cuts straight through the bone.

So Suguru, don’t you dare think this is easy for me.

---

Chapter 63: Suguru about Satoru: Let Me Go

Notes:

this piece ended up a companion piece to the previous

wine was a vino blanco 60% Zibbibo 40% Catarrato 2021that tasted like Sullivan King & Wooli - Let Me Go

---

Hello, Satoru.

I don’t think you understand.

This morning I woke up feeling bruised again. Took off my shirt and took a look in the mirror to check, but I can’t find where the blue’s on my skin.

You look at me with your eyes wide open, but they’re an empty plane of disdain. You don’t really see, do you? You see my cursed energy, but you don’t see me.

Your words I hear loud and clear, but mine go unheard.

You won’t leave me to silence if I walk away first.

But I have to, Satoru.

With you is not my home.

It’s time you let me go.

---

Hey, Satoru.

The fact that we’re each the only best friend the other will ever have is pretty sad, isn’t it?

We’re both bastards who are stronger than we know what to do with, but never strong enough for what we truly want to do.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think this could ever have worked. Not for very long.

There’s never enough room for more than one of anyone so strong.

We never really understood each other, did we? We looked with eyes wide open, but we didn’t see. We tried to listen, but we never did actually hear.

And so now you’re there, and now I’m here.

Funny, huh, how we came full circle again. Went from enemies to friends to enemies again, to horrible individuals who just wanted friends but went opposite ways to get them and yet ended up together again yet on opposite ends. Nobody ever thinks, huh, that a spectrum is actually a circle, and wherever you draw a radius line from middle to edge is where every opposite meets on its opposite end that is actually hairsbreadth close.

Satoru, those unseeing eyes that you used to hold wide open, you have them covered, now. You’ve blinded yourself at least halfway, but are you looking, now? Are you seeing, now?

I never could find where the blue was on my skin as every morning I woke up feeling bruised again.

For all of the colors I painted on gray, I never could look at any shade of blue without thinking of you.

Have you ever thought about how blue is the most seen but the most unalive color? Sky and ocean and waters are blue, but barely anything living. Living things come so much more often in red and orange and yellow and green and even purple, but so seldom blue. What do you think that means?

It was only every when I was looking at such vast and empty and unliving things that I thought of you.

Everything alive that I clung to and held close to my skin, it was every other color but the one most associated with you.

Satoru, I’m rambling silently in my head now, and you can’t hear any of it, can you? And you can’t see any of it in my eyes with that blindfold on, can you?

You might be landing the finishing blow, but you weren’t the one to kill me, Satoru. Not even that Okkotsu Yuta was, really.

It was the world, Satoru. It was the world that reduced me to this. Just like it was the world that did all of this to you.

I can finally see now, Satoru. Isn’t that funny? That now that I’m about to die, I finally see what for all of my life I’d been blind to. That we were both just victims to our powers and the lives we were born into in this fucked up world.

I don’t blame you, Satoru.

But with you was never my home.

It’s nice to finally see you realize, at the very least, that it’s time you let me go.

Thank you for all the good times, Satoru.

The bad times I don’t hold against you.

You were just trying to survive in this world, the same as I, and we just so happened to end up on opposite sides that were right next to each other.

I look forward to the darkness, without any spectrum of color at all.

Good night, Satoru.

I can’t say that I love you, I can’t even say that I like you, but I can say for absolute certain that I don’t hate you.

You were the only best friend I ever had too, Satoru.

But with you was never my home.

I hope that now, with my death, you can finally let me go.

---

He didn’t know what Kenjaku, with his body, would do.

Kenjaku with Suguru’s body to imprison Satoru, Sukuna with the son of Toji’s body to end him—

It really was funny, huh?

How life and death were a spectrum in the shape of a circle, with every start right next to its opposite end.

But maybe one need only look at the eternally blue sky, with day as night’s end and night as day’s end, to understand that every beginning was an end and every end was a beginning, and everything was always so close to its opposite that it was touching, no infinity ever between anything because every endlessness always wrapped around on itself again, without either beginning or end.

---

Notes:

these two break my heart omg

Chapter 64: Jin/Kaori(Kenjaku): Teeth

Notes:

i feel distinctly embarrassed for no particularly explainable reason whatsoever

so have another chapter as i attempt to cover this feeling up :)) bc this obviously makes sense :))

ah well another chapter is another chapter right?

the wine for this piece was a shiraz, the song it tasted like was 5 Seconds of Summer - Teeth

---

Some days, Kaori was the best thing in Jin’s life. He’d look at her and he’d see his wife.

Then she’d turn into someone he didn’t know. She’d push him away, only to call him in the morning to apologize and beg him to stay.

Maybe he was crazy, but every little lie gave him butterflies. Something about the way she was looking through his eyes.

Sometimes he didn’t know if he was going to get out alive.

She fought so dirty, but her love was so sweet. She talked so pretty, but her heart had teeth.

Some days she was the only thing he knew. The only thing burning when the nights grew cold.

He couldn’t look away, he couldn’t ever look away. Couldn’t ever do anything but beg her to stay.

Sometimes she was a stranger in his bed, sometimes he didn’t know if she loved him or she wanted him dead. But still he wanted her to put her hands on him and never let go, pretty little late night devil.

Maybe he was crazy, but he wanted this woman as wife. Wanted to have her for his entire life.

Blood on his shirt, rose in his hand—sometimes she looked at him like she didn’t know who he was.

Blood on his shirt, heart in his hands, still beating.

She fought so dirty but her love was so sweet, talked so pretty but her mind had teeth.

Maybe he was crazy, but he loved that late night devil and would make her his wife.

Maybe she was crazy, but her every little lie gave him butterflies.

Just something about the way she looked through his eyes.

He’d love this woman even if he didn’t make it out alive.

---

The fun ones always liked them crazy.

So Kenjaku/Kaori would play, push Jin away and then beg him to stay, fight with him and dig in his/her nails only to call in the morning to apologize with words so sweet, and later in the dark once again sink in his/her teeth, make Itadori Jin scream his/her current name.

Kaori.

It was a nice name, as far as names went.

Scream it louder.

It was hardly a surprise that Sukuna’s twin liked them crazy.

That was also how Kenjaku/Kaori liked it.

Sure, he felt more like a man, generally speaking, but after all these hundreds of years and hundreds of lives, gender didn’t really matter anymore, and being female had such advantages. Straight guys got so stupid whenever a woman was involved.

Whatever Kenjaku/Kaori was wasn’t anything that could ever be defined.

Jin’s blood on his/her face, rose in her his/her hand, Jin looking at him/her like he didn’t know who he/she was, like he/she was a stranger.

That was fair—technically, he/she was.

But it only ever drew Jin closer, just like Kenjaku/Kaori figured.

Jin would figure it was her heart, and never realize that it was Kenjaku’s/Kaori’s brain that had teeth.

But hey, Sukuna’s twin wasn’t a bad fuck. And Kenjaku/Kaori had fucked a lot.

As for being pregnant and giving birth, that was something else entirely—interesting to experience once, but probably not something he’d/she’d do again.

Itadori Yuji was all that he/she could have hoped for, though.

And so, all his/her plans were coming perfectly together.

Especially with the acquisition of the body of Geto Suguru.

Back in a male body, but he still sure was pretty.

Well, this suited Kenjaku/Suguru just fine.

And, of course, he/she hadn’t left Itadori Jin alive.

Kenjaku/Kaori had killed him, just like Itadori Jin had suspected and yet ignored.

Well, Jin had died with blood on his shirt and a rose in his hand, smiling sadly with love in his eyes, so it was probably one of the least cruel of Kenjaku’s murders, all things considered.

At least he’d/she’d sent Jin off with a kiss, if a kiss with teeth.

But as always, Itadori Jin had liked that.

So for killing him before he/she left, Kenjaku/Kaori felt benevolent more than anything.

His/her love had always been sweet, even if his/her fighting was dirty.

And just like Jin had wanted, he/she had never let go, had killed him with his/her hands around his throat, a rose between his/her bloodstained teeth.

‘Love you’ Jin had mouthed, before the life had left his eyes.

So yeah, Sukuna’s twin was an idiot, just like Itadori Yuji would be.

But still, they’d both served Kenjaku’s purposes perfectly.

Love was for people whose brains didn’t have teeth.

Chapter 65: Satoru & Naoya: Masks

Notes:

actually i'm feeling inexplicably reckless and posting chapters of this fic is probly one of the least bad things i can do in such a hypomanic mood, so have another chapter lol

this wine was a cabernet sauvignon (my fav wine variety! guess it only makes sense that it reminded me of some of my favs, both in regards to song and to characters), the song it tasted like was Aviators - Masks

---

Satoru hated Naoya.

It was jarring just to look at him, like it would be jarring to look at someone who’d pulled off the skin of their face and now there was nothing there but the exposed red flesh beneath, open and raw.

And this haunting person was smiling at you while your perfect face you were looking out the eye-holes of was feeling constricting and suffocating like a mask.

These sorcerer clan events were always like a masquerade, everyone wearing masks behind which they were dead inside, as fake as the masks that controlled them, all of them puppets without puppeteers and yet acting as if there were one.

And then there was Naoya, maskless and moving without strings, so wild and terrifying because he was so uncontrolled.

Satoru hated him. His bright blue stare that had everyone else trying to shake their tremors ran off Naoya like water off a snake’s scales.

In comparison to Satoru, everyone was blind. But Naoya looked all around like he was serpentine tongue-flicking, perceiving without eyes.

Naoya was cut free, but he was soulless still—

Satoru tried to tell himself that.

But Satorue, just like everyone else, was trapped in his own disguise.

The Strongest.

But underneath that he was terrified of making even one mistake.

And so he narrowed his mind, until his soul began to break.

But he was the Strongest, so it was suffering that he could take.

Vilified for deeds done in the light, hiding away within plain sight, his perfect mask keeping safe his secret face, the empty husk that was just seeking the world’s false graces.

He tried switching up the mask, from oni to noh, from intimidating to comic relief, but always, always, the mask never didn’t have the Six Eyes.

How much of the Six Eyes was the emptiness of Satoru’s mask, and how much of the Six Eyes was the emptiness behind the mask, not even Satoru himself knew.

All he knew was that every mask controlled its wearer, and the Six Eyes, more than anything, was controlled as well as controlling.

But everyone, really, had identities of silence, searching for cheaper scares. Awake within the moment but asleep throughout their lives, suffering in the torment, ensnared within their lies. But in their facelessness, their maskedness, they were all equal, because none of them were even really there because they were all hiding.

Everyone except for Naoya, that motherfucking Zen’in Naoya.

Zen’in Naoya, who had seen Toji first, had realized his strength so much faster, while Satoru hadn’t realized until after, until after Toji killed him, and then further hadn’t realized until after he’d killed Toji how one’s dreams would be haunted by the ghosts that they killed, making one more deathly still alive.

But Naoya, Naoya, Naoya was so alive that everyone who didn’t know how to be alive hated him, Satoru included.

Naoya was too fucking honest, too fucking open, too fucking real, and life was a masquerade and nobody was supposed to be real but the rule book that everyone else had internalized Naoya had thrown out the window from the beginning and written his own rules down in pencil in a tiny notebook he kept in his pocket that got warped by rain and time and which he also erased and crossed out and rewrote whenever he liked.

All of them were just masked puppets dancing on the strings of a nonexistent puppeteer that was somehow more real than anything, but Naoya was just moving himself as he pleased and damnit, you could’t play the game with someone who didn’t follow the rules, it destroyed the entire thing.

Naoya destroyed everything. He always had, so carelessly doing such unthinkable things as venerating someone with zero cursed energy.

Sometimes, Satoru pitied the fool—they all of them might be surrounded by the masks they wore, but Naoya was alone with his naked face in a masquerade world.

Other times, Satoru was jealous of him—the way Naoya could emote and express himself so unrestrictedly, so unashamedly, while Satoru himself could only ever hide it all behind a mask either glaring or smiling. And Naoya wasn’t like those who emoted and expressed themselves without care because they believed they were right and the world also believed they were right—Naoya did so fully aware that the entire rest of the world was against him.

Satoru envied him. Satoru hated him. Satoru wanted to be like him but he couldn’t. Satoru wanted to shut him up but he couldn’t. He couldn’t do anything to Naoya, not anything at all—everything that he wanted to do went against everything that controlled him.

The easiest thing to do was to avoid him.

And that was easy, most of the time. Naoya was in Kyoto, in the Zen’in clan, but Satoru was in Tokyo, and they almost never crossed paths.

Except at those goddamn sorcerer clan events.

And Satoru was the Six Eyes and the head of the Gojo clan and he had to go, and so he went, hiding with a smile in a crowded place, talking through the lips of a plastic face, every word just a code that screamed I’m owned by terror—but nobody ever heard.

Nobody but Naoya, heir of the Zen’in clan, who looked at him with a soft gold gaze that cut like blades and said, “You’re someone underneath this, Satoru-kun, behind that mask you wear.”

It stabbed Satoru up beneath the ribcage, and made him want to punch his fist through Naoya right there.

But he wasn’t like Naoya, who could do and say whatever he pleased because he was maskless and wore only a living shifting human face.

Satoru had a fixed six-eyed mask, and so he smiled and said, “If there’s someone underneath this, not even I know who he is.”

Are you scared to see what lies beneath, behind these artificially smiling teeth?

Most people would be.

Satoru certainly was.

But Naoya? Not at all.

Naoya, who had looked at Zen’in Toji, a man with zero cursed energy who the entire rest of the sorcerer world had called a failure, and seen a man stronger than anybody, looked at Satoru, the strongest sorcerer as acknowledged by the entire sorcerer world, and smiled.

“Even if you don’t know who he is, I, at least, would be glad to get to know him.”

I wouldn’t, Satoru thought, because just like everyone else who went around masked he was terrified, of both himself and of everyone else.

But Naoya just gave him that smile, that one that said, I’m utterly alone in this world and so eat terror every day for breakfast, you wimp, and said out loud, “But that’s okay; a Zen’in and a Gojo would never get to know each other anyway.”

And then Naoya turned and walked away, and Satoru thought, I hate you, more than anyone.

Only Naoya, with his maskless eyes, had ever looked at Satoru and seen.

And Satoru’s entire existence depended upon hiding behind masks and disguises.

---

When Satoru came back out of the Prison Realm and learned that Maki had slaughtered the Zen’in clan, he didn’t ask about Naoya.

He didn’t want to know.

He didn’t want to have to try to hide the inexplicable emotions that he didn’t understand because he’d never examined them because he’d always refused to.

If Naoya was dead, so what?

Everyone else in the world would die, too, Satoru included.

Death didn’t make anyone special. Life didn’t make anyone special.

If there was anything that ever did make anyone special, what was it?

Strength? Genius? Cruelty? Kindness?

Nothing ever made anyone truly special except for if love made someone love them over all others.

And neither Naoya nor Satoru would ever have anyone who would ever love them.

Or at the very least, nobody would ever love them who wasn’t an absolute fool.

Irremediable sorcerer clan bastards, the both of them, whether masked or maskless—

Not even that mattered, in the end.

Whether you were false or true, you still both lived and died. And if there was an afterlife, Naoya certainly wouldn’t be the first who Satoru would be seeing.

He might just be the last, though, in that way where endings always overrode their beginnings and middles.

Out of everything in the world, the beginnings, the processes, and the stops, you remembered the processes least, the beginnings second, and the endings first.

And Naoya had always been the ending of everything Satoru had ever believed about the world.

Notes:

Satoru calling his students fools for loving him and himself a fool for loving Naoya smh

Chapter 66: Yuta: Stone Cold Killer

Notes:

ok have yet another chapter *le sob, lol*

there hasn't been enuf Yuta amirite? :))

this wine was a "sweetish" riesling, and the song it tasted like was Kat Leon - Stone Cold Killer

---

A couple years ago, if you’d told Yuta the way he would become, he’d probably have tried to kill himself again.

Now, looking back at the boy he had once been, Yuta would just smile and say, It’s okay, I know you’re afraid. But you don’t have to be.

Love isn’t something you should be afraid of. Not even if it makes you a stone cold killer.

Look at me. Don’t you see me smiling? Smiling like you’ve never been able to since Rika-chan died. Do you know why I can smile like this, now? Having become the way I am?

Because I’ve accepted our love. That between Rika-chan and us. This love that makes us… stone cold. It also makes so incredibly warm. See?

Blood might be dark, but it’s so warm, too. Pain might hurt, but that’s what makes you know you’re alive rather than dead. And you don’t want to be dead, me. Trust me.

Because when you die, Rika-chan dies, too.

You’re the only thing keeping her alive, me. She’s alive in you. She’s alive in us. You don’t have to be afraid of that.

Embrace that. Embrace her. Embrace us.

We’re not so scary, me. We’re strong like this. Strength isn’t scary. Strength isn’t bad. You don’t have to keep being so weak, me. You’re stronger than others. You know that you are. That’s why you’re so afraid. That’s why you make yourself so weak.

Yes, Rika-chan would be a stone cold killer for you. And you’d be a stone cold killer for her. Is that so bad?

Look at this ring, me. Remember what it means to you. What it makes you feel. Go ahead and cry, it’s okay. I know it hurts. I know you wanted to grow up with her and marry her and live with her forever like normal lovers.

And guess what? You’re still growing up with her and you can still marry her and you can still live forever, even if not like normal lovers. But neither us nor her were ever normal anyway, were we? We met sick in the hospital, so alienated from all the other kids. And that’s where we found our love. In the sharing of our pain and suffering and sickness. So is it any wonder that our love is so much stronger than that of others who love so superficially?

You feel deeply, me. I know, because I’m you, and I feel deeply, too. The same reason that you’re miserable and afraid now is the same reason that I’m now happy and content.

It’s okay, me. I know you’re scared. But of all the terrible things in this world, love is the one you should be least afraid of. And of all the beautiful things in this world, love is the one you should most celebrate and cherish.

So what if our love makes us a stone cold killer? It also makes us a warm and passionate lover, and a warm and loyal friend. And aren’t those things the most important in this world?

You can hunt them down, me, you don’t owe them anything. You can enjoy it, too. You’re on your way to becoming something. Trust me, I know, because I’m what you become. You don’t have to be scared of me. You don’t have to hate me.

Come here, me. Hug me. Embrace me. Let me hug and embrace you. No need to shake and shiver. You’ll forgive me, one day, for being what you fear… because I’ve forgiven you for fearing to become me.

So it’s okay, me. Even if it doesn’t feel like it’s okay now. Even if it doesn’t feel like anything could ever possibly okay. Things will be okay. Trust me, I’ve been through it all already. You don’t understand now, because how could you? But you will, once I’ve replaced you and you’ve become me.

Those chills crawling up your spine? Just think how nice it will be to see those same chills crawling up the spines of those who thought they could stand against you. Because they can’t, can they? Not when you have Rika-chan by your side.

And you always do. And you always will.

So embrace that, me. Become that warm passionate lover and stone cold killer.

Because it’s okay to be happy, me, even though Rika-chan is dead.

You know the greatest lie about marriage, me? It’s the ‘till death do us part’ part.

Because a love as strong as what we feel, as what Rika-chan feels? Not even death can part us.

And if that’s not marriage, what is it?

So take that ring off the chain around your neck, me, and put it not on your right ring finger but on your left.

Because neither us nor Rika-chan have ever been normal lovers. And maybe others have a wedding ceremony to unite them, but us and Rika-chan were united forever that moment when she died right before our eyes, having pushed us out of the way of that speeding car that didn’t stop.

So wear that wedding ring with pride, me.

Rika-chan’s the reason we’re still alive. And she should also be the reason we can still be happy, rather than a reason for us to be miserable. You don’t want to render her to just that, do you?

Love Rika-chan, me.

Love her, and love yourself for loving her.

You warm and passionate stone cold killer.

Of course, even if he were able to tell his past self all that, he knew his past self wouldn’t understand, not at the place in life where he was. But he would understand, once he became who Yuta was now. And then he’d also wish he could tell his past self this, and feel that melancholy at how some things could never be realized with words and could only ever be realized by experiences and time.

But even despite his past foolishness and ignorance, Yuta could say with confidence that he didn’t regret anything.

Because every choice he’d ever made, whether good or bad, had all lead him to this place where he was now.

And this place where he was now, he was happy and content, in love with Rika-chan even in her cursed spirit form and loving himself for loving and accepting and embracing her.

He was like a boss now, picking them off one by one. They ran their mouths like their worthless words mattered, he just forced them face down, made them kiss that concrete, bloodstains at their feet.

They’d fucked with the wrong kind.

But oh, he loved watching them shake and shiver, chills crawling up their spines as they stared up into the face of a stone cold killer.

And it was just so, so funny, that one was called cold for this when all he felt was heat.

Notes:

he has the most peak character development ever imho

Chapter 67: Toji & Naoya & Satoru & Naobito (AKA the Zen’in and Gojo sorcerer clan bastards): Sippy Cup

Notes:

how much is too much binge-posting

this piece is weird but here have it anyway

wine was a sweet white, the song it tasted like was Melanie Martinez - Sippy Cup

---

Blood still stained when clothes were washed, so Toji preferred to wear to black.

Sex didn’t sleep when the lights were off, so Toji fucked in the dark and slept when the sun came up.

---

Kids were still depressed when you dressed them up.

But Naoya dressed up anyway, and pretended like he wasn’t depressed at all.

---

Syrup was still syrup in a sippy cup.

Satoru thought everyone in the world was an idiot, because he was the Six Eyes, not a fucking kid.

---

Naobito was still bored when he finished the bottle.

It was only ever a future corpse that was lying in the cradle.

---

Blood money, blood money.

“How did you afford this ring that I love, honey?”

Toji lied with a smile, “Just another shift at the drug company.”

---

Naoya hated the way the Zen’ins pulled up to their estate like it made them so important.

He knew what went on inside, and it wasn’t anything to preen or gloat over.

Still he preened and gloated, anyway, because as the heir he had to be a perfect Zen’in.

---

Pill diet, pill diet—

If Satoru were born into a normal family, probably that would’ve been what he’d be made to take.

All the makeup in the world wouldn’t make him less insecure.

---

Naobito had weights in his pockets when they sent him to the doctor.

He told Naoya to do the same so he wouldn’t get annoyingly nagged.

Their metabolism was simply insane but their cursed energy made up for most of the weight loss.

---

Syrup was still syrup in a sippy cup.

But still in a sippy cup was the only way they drank their syrup.

That was the only way they knew how to drink it.

Chapter 68: Jin/Kaori(Kenjaku): Dry Blood

Notes:

i'm still binge-posting...

i'm sorry? you're welcome? either way lol...

this wine was a sweet red, the song it tasted like was HighInd, Alex Venegas - Dry Blood

---

Kaori was poison, but she was Jin’s muse.

He drank her down, he couldn’t refuse.

Blood stains didn’t show on red wine cups.

Nor her little black dresses that she had him throwing to the floor—in her room, like pictures, trophies of the hearts that she’d broken before.

That first night, she had dried blood on her mouth, on her teeth.

He should’ve started running, but it had made him never want to leave.

He kept his eyes shut tight, because it felt so right.

Now his blood was drip-dripping, because she was so sweet, kiss-kissing until she bit.

But if he knew then what he knew now about her, he’d still go.

To her place, want her to take him home, he wanted to go.

All her blood-stained dresses that she had him throwing to the floor—

He only ever wanted more, no matter all the signs, like pictures, of all the hearts she’d broken before.

He was so glad, so proud, so pleased, when he finally impregnated her. When she was going to have his kid. His kid.

He wanted to live with her forever.

And, well, he did.

He lived with her until his death, her knife in his chest, in his side.

She truly had the sweetest kiss until she bit.

But at least she’d has his kid.

God, he loved that woman.

He didn’t even care when he died by her hand.

The child that they’d created together, he knew, would be amazing.

Even if he could go back in time, he’d never change anything.

Because it had all lead up to him bedding and wedding her.

That first night, she had dried blood on her mouth, on her teeth.

He should’ve started running, but it had made him never want to leave.

Chapter 69: Mai & Maki: Midnights

Notes:

last one for awhile i promise lol

this wine was a cabernet sauvignon, which tasted like the song Serhat Durmus - Midnights and did not remind me of any of my fav characters lol

but it was abt time that we got to see these two :))

short piece... but at least it exists?

---

Maki had left her with no trust. God, they’d been through so much stuff.

But now Mai would pick herself up. She’d give herself what she needed.

She didn’t need Maki.

But she still couldn’t forget all the things that Maki had ruined for her.

But she’d be stronger, so that when they met again, Mai could show her twin sister.

Show her that she didn’t need her, show her just how much she hated her and how that had made her so much stronger.

---

Now Maki was strong enough to leave. To forget Mai’s touch, her hand in hers, forget their love when they’d both been all the other had had.

She’d move on even though it hurt.

Their love for each other had been all they’d had, but it had changed. They were both moving in two separate ways.

So Maki would leave.

And by the time she saw Mai again, it would seem too late to say sorry for anything.

Chapter 70: Toji: Older Me

Notes:

happy holidays everyone :)

the wine for this piece was a petit verdot, and the song it tasted like was 2WEI - Older Me

---

All those things were memories—killing and sentiment had nothing to do with it.

Toji’s anger was just gone, so far gone.

He didn’t miss the older him.

But they’d just never know.

And he’d just load and lock his gun.

They could lock all the doors, but he’d be upping the score and coming for more. It would be destruction galore, they wouldn’t even be able to afford what he had in store. They wouldn’t be able to stop the rapport, everyone who knew him knew he’d stock the awards, an entrepreneur who didn’t conform.

Even if they were near him he overlapped, still would be ahead of them even if he relapsed. He was taking heads off, anyone would be the next one if they were stepping onto his track. He never broke at all he just snapped. He never faked at all he’d just react. Acting up, they could play him back to back and then back it up but he’d just stack the stats and then rack it up. They’d all get wrapped up, wouldn’t ever be able to come and attack him, hoping they would come correct moving like a cigarette, just how he’d get at their neck. To get respect he’d come as a threat.

But still all those things were memories. His anger was just gone, so far gone.

He’d load and lock his gun, but it didn’t mean anything because his anger was just gone, so far gone, and he didn’t miss the older him, not at all.

To far he’d come, and now the anger in him was gone.

The anger in him was gone—but they’d never, never know.

Because he’d kill just like he was still angry, simply because he was just that good.

Another set of ammo set and clicked and loaded in his gun—and he’d be killing like his anger wasn’t gone even though it was.

It wasn’t about the revenge, now. It was only about the money. He was just enjoying life, now.

But he’d let them think he was coming as more of a threat than he was, simply because it upped how much his work was worth.

It was funny, really, the power he got from letting it all go, killing without feeling anything.

The opposite of love wasn’t hate, it was indifference—and Toji was now as indifferent as they came.

Or so he had liked to think.

But it was his pride that he couldn’t let go of that killed him, in the end, because his anger wasn’t truly gone.

The anger had never been gone.

Chapter 71: Nanami: Angst?

Notes:

this wine was a cabernet sauvignon, the song it tasted like was Eisbrecher - Angst?

the song's in German. English translation is here

"angst" in English means 'a feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general' but "angst" in German means 'fear' so basically the title of this song is 'Fear?/Afraid?'

but this was fun, bc finally a Nanami chapter :))

canonically he has a grandparent that's Danish. but that doesn't mean he can't also be partly German... also the Danish and German languages are very similar, at least according to the Danish students in my German language classes in Berlin

---

Rotting alive in that office job with the money on his card the only comfort in the cold dark ugly world, Nanami’s traitorous mind asked his enervated heart what it was that he was so afraid of.

Why it was that he couldn’t continue on as a sorcerer. Why he thought that it didn’t do anything. Why he thought it was too late.

Why was he running away from all the lies and the filth.

He didn’t know why he was running, and he didn’t know to where was running.

Running from he didn’t know what, he’d ended up here, doing this finance job that in theory was supposed to help people but in practice was designed to screw people over and rob them of the money which was now lining his pockets as the only cold comfort in this cold world. And now he was asking himself why he was doing this. What was the reason for it.

He wanted something, but he didn’t know what.

When he wanted to leave, fear was casting its shadow on the door. When he wanted to stay, fear was casting its shadow on the floor.

Fear was eating into him like an ulcer. But he didn’t know what the fear was of. But it was holding him tight in its hand.

Naked fear was the power controlling him. Grinding him to dust in the gray like a grating stone mill.

The money he was making like it was the entire purpose of his existence—it was fear that was the source of that greed.

His traitorous mind asked his enervated heart what he was afraid of.

His heart didn’t want to answer that it was fear of itself.

Fear of caring and then losing what he cared about. Like he had with Haibara. Like seemed to be the rule of the sorcerer world. Like seemed to be the rule of this entire world.

His traitorous mind ate at his enervated heart. Asking him what it was he was afraid of, what it was he was afraid of, what it was he was afraid.

He was so weary and so rushed.

Because the fear was eating at him.

It felt like the fear was following him to his grave. Every day, his life was getting shorter. And he was living it like this, running away and yet just spinning his tires in the same place.

And as he did he threw himself away, again and again and again. Living for the cold hard cash because it was the only thing as cold and hard as the world, and so the only thing that he could live for without really caring if he lost it.

When he wanted to leave, fear was casting its shadow on the door. When he wanted to stay, fear was ripping him apart like paper.

What was he doing this for? Fear grasping him tightly in its hand.

Fear knew him well and was the mother of his woes, was his leader and his despot. Fear was the awfulness in his sight.

That fear of himself.

It came in the night, locked him in its dark chamber, made him the fruit of its womb.

Yes, his fear would not let him go.

He ran as fast as he could, but he was exhausted and going nowhere.

Never getting away from this naked fear.

This fear had emasculated him. It was the silence before the storm, it ate into him like a worm.

It was always fear that drove him away from where he was. Away from the sorcerer world, and then away from the civilian world back to it.

That fear of himself that wouldn’t let him go, traitorous mind and enervated heart holding him in eternal limbo, able to care about nothing but money and efficiency and not having to work overtime because those were the only things that couldn’t hurt him, but not actually caring about them enough to make his life worth it because it was only because the things one cared about that could hurt one and so it was only the things he didn’t care about that couldn’t hurt him.

He was afraid of having happiness only to lose it.

And so he kept himself in misery so he didn’t have to be afraid.

But eventually the fear of his traitorous mind, that fear of never making a difference, won out over his enervated heart that feared more than anything being hurt, and drove him back to the sorcerer world, just to do with his miserable life at least a little bit of good.

But he always kept himself away from everything he could ever care about, because the fear never let him go.

That fear of his feelings and of his self.

Chapter 72: Shoko: Am I Wrong

Summary:

Shoko, and some Shoko & Gojo bonding

[oh and the author's alive and has a lil update]

Notes:

heya, hiya, not dead! just haven't been doing fanfiction since i've been working on an original webnovel with the help of my newly betrothed, we have rings and everything i am going to marry this girl she's amazing, she's been supporting me so much and also has been doing art for my original character. i'm srsly super super excited for when i'm able to start posting the story :))

might not be for awhile yet because i want to have a good amount written... and i'm still working on my anxiety haha, was just talking with my therapist about it this morning. but i am srsly excited for this og bl, it's hands-down the best thing i've ever written. lol it hilariously started out as being supposed to be something of a spoof on some bl tropes but i fail at tropes lol so now according to my betrothed it's "a bunch of traumatized guys in the found family trope", which, yeah :)) i am very excited and absolutely obsessed with writing on it, like srsly srsly.

so yeah, haven't rlly been doing fanfiction for several months, but i still have drabbles for this story stashed up so i figured i might as well go ahead and start posting them. and also, y'know, let ppl know that i'm alive and working on something rlly cool :))

anyways! as for this drabble:

the wine for this piece was a red blend from a Black Owned, Women Owned winery. the song it made me think of was
"Am I Wrong" by TeZATalks, who just so happens to be a black female artist so it was perfect. her songs are super super cool, def recommend checking out her music!

---

Was she wrong? For looking at these people with no love? Then giving everything because nobody else could a thing?

She wasn’t perfect, she was just humane while they were human.

She saved who she could, in whatever way she could. The people she couldn’t save she didn’t cry about.

She felt like a fallen angel, and they treated her like a god. The only one who could use reverse cursed energy to heal others the way she did.

It was funny how the more people she saved, the more they got mad when she couldn’t.

These kids especially were ridiculous, and Gojo just encouraged them. He had a bad case of parenthood, wanting his students to have the youth that he couldn’t.

But life as a sorcerer was just a gamble, either losing and dying or winning in an extravagant display and reckless dispersal of wealth.

Gojo couldn’t say that she was wrong. Till he spoiled these kids, and then people died and they got mad, they all talked. Let them wear out her name because they’d always be coming back to her to heal them because there was no one else. Other than that, she wouldn’t get involved.

Really she just couldn’t relate. She had the power to heal, not the power to revive; she’d save the still living, but she could do nothing for the dead. So should she cry? For everything that she couldn’t do, as if she couldn’t do so much more than anyone else. Should she cry because of that? Little fallen angel fallen short of heaven and being a god. So should she cry?

It didn’t matter who the person was, her eyes would stay dry. Even Gojo wouldn’t bring her to tears, the eternal idiot, never had changed from how he’d always been. But even if Utahime or Mei Mei died her eyes would be dry, because she always gave everything she could, gave more than anyone else ever could, and any death despite that was out of her hands. She wasn’t perfect; she was just humane while they were human, a fallen angel where they saw a god.

Current status: alive or dead? Did it matter? Everything changed. She didn’t catch feelings, she just meant the things she said. Cigarette to her lips or a bottle of alcohol, the psychoactive substances made everything slip away. So was she wrong? She saw death and suffering everyday, every day since becoming a sorcerer, she’d never had the luxury of naivety that Gojo had given his all to give these kids as if he could live out his lost youth in them. What good would it do them? Death would come for them all the same, and all the more horribly for them not understanding that that was what it meant to be a sorcerer—no, that that was what it meant to be alive.

Only Yuta understood death, because he was eternally haunted by the death specter of his childhood love. She liked that about him. That he was perfectly willing to use Gojo’s dead body to try to defeat Sukuna, while all the rest protested, thinking a dead body sacred. What a laugh.

Death was death and a corpse was a corpse, it didn’t matter whose it was. Except, of course, in this instance of Yuta, near death, being able to hop to Gojo’s body and both preserve his own life for awhile longer and bring back some of Gojo’s power. Of course she was on board.

She existed to save the living, by whatever means she could, not to ‘respect’ the dead as if a dead body was worth anything beyond what could be learned by its dissection.

These fucking kids that Gojo had taught. Only Yuta was free of the deathly wistful longing of the youth Gojo, as the Six Eyes, had never been able to have.

Beyond healing who she could, Shoko wasn’t going to get involved. Everyone lived until they died, and when they died they were dead, and until then they lived how they wanted, and that wasn’t any of her business. She healed who she could, and she congratulated herself for doing what nobody else could have done; she dissected or disposed of the dead, and she congratulated herself for doing wht nobody else would be able to do. Then she smoked a pack of cigarettes on her way home until everything felt okay, or once she was home grabbed a pack of beer or a bottle of sake from the fridge and drank until any and all feelings were numb.

The bags beneath her eyes? Nobody ever asked. But if they had, she would have told it was anemia. If they’d understood enough to laugh, she’d have treated them to a drink, whether alcoholic or not.

She wasn’t perfect, she was just humane while they were human.

So was she wrong? For looking at these people with no love? Then giving everything because nobody else could give a thing?

“You’re not wrong,” Gojo had said, looking away with blindfolded eyes. “It’s just that everyone has a different reality.”

She could have slapped him, if not for his Infinity.

“What’s yours, then?” she asked him, leaning on the railing with an unlit cigarette between her fingers because she’d promised Utahime she wouldn’t smoke anymore, though sometimes it was hard to remember why.

“If we ignore one man who no longer exists,” Gojo said, “everything living exists to me in six dimensions, while everything dead or unalive exists to me in only five.”

“Wow,” Shoko drawled. “Huge difference.”

“Right?” Gojo said, smiling. “And yet, there’s so much more to life than even my Six Eyes can see. Breath, heartbeat, body heat, soul—”

“I really don’t care,” Shoko said, crushing the unlit cigarette between her fingers.

Gojo gave a little laugh. “Of course you don’t. Like I said, everyone’s reality is different. Funny that I first heard this leaking through the eyes of the Prison Cube from the mouth of a cursed spirit. He could see people’s souls, you know? I must admit I almost wish I could have been touched by him, just so he would fully see mine, and also because I don’t think mine could be warped by him. But it would’ve been interesting, don’t you think?”

“You dwell too much on the past,” Shoko told him. “You should look less on the past and more on the present and future.”

“Maybe so,” Gojo said relentingly, a musing smile. A finger slinking underneath his blindfold like he might draw it up from his eyes, except he didn’t. “But how far ahead can one look without seeing death?”

“A fair way for you, I assume,” Shoko said, and Gojo laughed.

“Right?” his finger curled around his blindfold from behind but still didn’t pull it. “So I wonder… what’s the point of looking much ahead at all?”

“Please let your Infinity down so I can hit you,” Shoko said, and Gojo laughed again. “I won’t hit hard,” Shoko promised. “You’ll barely feel a thing. Just let me hit you, huh?”

“I would do so for nobody else, but for you I shall,” he said graciously.

So Shoko hit him, and it felt good.

That was the last time she ever touched him.

Later, she’d wonder if it hadn’t also been the first.

Still, when he died she shed no tears, and she didn’t care about giving Yuta Gojo’s dead body at all.

When she got home, she drank herself blackout drunk, but what did that show? Only that she’d rather be numb than feeling. It didn’t mean that she actually felt anything.

So tell her she was wrong, but she’d still be the one healing you when you fell and lost, and the one to dispose of your body when you died.

Chapter 73: Satoru: Sunlight

Summary:

The sunlight hurts his eyes

Notes:

a second chapter for all my lovelies, thank u to everyone who's still here and reading :))

oh fuck wow, just looked at the update date of this story and apparently haven't posted anything all year up until now, and it's the middle of August? i didn't even realize....
my lovely partner and that og found family bl are kind of my life now. despite how the world seems to be going to hell, i'm still doing better on a personal and mental health level than i have in literally my entire life. so, i actually have some hope for my future, for the first time ever. cleaned my room the other month and found all these notebooks and post-its i'd written during my darkest days a few years ago... seeing how srsly bad things had been for me mental health-wise was kinda chilling.
but ig that's kinda why i'm writing this og bl with all these traumatized guys who are all super fucked up but still have to find ways to keep on living thru all these rlly dark times and the aftermath of them before things do get better. very psychological, and a whole lot of the characters dealing with a whole lot of trauma and mental health issues. but despite everything, it's very much a story of hope rather than of tragedy. so yeah i'm rlly, rlly excited for it. :)) but yeah taking awhile bc im putting a whole lot into it.

i hope you've all been holding up?

ik these lil drabbles aren't much, but i do hope you enjoy and/or get something out of them <3 or that they're, y'know, at least better than nothing.

for this chapter, the wine was a pinot grigio, and the song it tasted like was "Sunlight" by Modestep, which is always a fun and very relatable song imo :) or am i the only vampire hissing and flinching whenever i have go go out in the sunlight...

let's inflict the almighty Gojo Satoru with some sun-induced suffering as well yeah? or does his Infinity work against that too?
ok this piece is actually a bit deeper and more metaphorical than that, but y'know. who of us doesn't love to see Gojo suffer from something or other.

---

Satoru put on his dark shades and waved to yesterday, said once again Goodbye, I’ll start again anew.

Dark shades like nightfall each time he donned them to move like a god sleepwalking, a dark tint that fell away like a dawn every time he took them off to look at the world with wide open eyes that tore holes in time and space.

His fingers twitched, and the sun traversed the sky where he never looked because the highest ascended being need never look up.

So he put on his dark shades and looked down, because that was the only way he’d be able to connect with any of the beings around him.

---

“Why are you wearing those dark sunglasses?”

Satoru smiled, “The sunlight hurts my eyes.”

The sunlight caught on his white lashes when he turned his head just so, giving them a luminous glow.

And when he turned his resplendent blue gaze away, it was hard not to believe that such an delicately intense color wouldn’t feel the burn of the blinding light of the sun.

---

Satoru wrapped bandages around his eyes and waved to yesterday, said once again Goodbye, I don’t need you, I don’t need anything or anyone.

Bandages like he was wrapping an injury, wrapping his eyes like they’d been gouged and would never heal, because when he stared through them it felt like they never would, but when he pulled the bandages away a god stared out from the eyes he had uncovered.

His fingers curled, and the sun crossed the sky where he never looked because the highest ascended being had nothing to look up to.

So he wrapped bandages around his eyes like his blessed curse was an injury, and he looked down because it was a shadow gliding over the ground that had once killed him.

---

“Why are your eyes bandaged?”

Satoru smiled, “The sunlight hurt my eyes.”

The sunlight caught on the bandages and his hair when he turned his head just so, making them glow.

And when he turned away, moving like he could see just fine, it made it hard to believe that the bandages wrapped over his eyes made him at all blind.

---

Satoru pulled his dark blindfold over his eyes and waved to yesterday, said once again Goodbye, I’ll start again anew.

Dark blindfold like nightfall each time he donned it to move like a god sleepwalking, a darkness that fell away like a dawn every time he took them off to look at the world with wide open eyes that tore holes in time and space.

His fingers tensed, and the sun trekked the sky where he never looked because there was nothing to see in the heavens for all that there was lay on the earth.

So he pulled his blindfold over his eyes, because even on the earth there was rarely anything to see, and he looked down because at least that shadow of inhibition made him look a little bit human.

---

“Why do you wear that blindfold?”

Satoru smiled, “The sunlight hurts my eyes.”

The sunlight caught on his glossed lips when he turned his head just so, giving them a lambent glow.

And when he turned away, those glistening glossed lips curved in a smirk as he moved like an all-seeing god, it made it hard to believe that something as simple as sunlight could possibly hurt him.

---

Whether sunglasses, bandages or blindfold, Satoru only pulled them off when he had to—

Otherwise, there was just no reason to, because he didn’t need to. Life was truly so dull that he could get by partially visually inhibited or blind.

Yes, the sunlight did hurt his eyes, when he looked to the skies.

But that was why he didn’t look to the skies, and looked instead to the earth where everything living had cursed energy, cursed energy being dark.

But everything behind him was already behind him, and everything ahead of him was already ahead of him, so he put on his vision inhibitor of choice and waved to yesterday, Goodbye, I’ll start again anew, like the sun rose from each night in a new dawn to once again look down upon the earth in its trek across the heavens.

Chapter 74: Mahito &/ Kenjaku: Hurts So Good

Summary:

Kenjaku's love might be just a game, but Mahito's is just an experiment

Notes:

a third chapter bc i feel bad for not posting anything in so long? and three is a nice number. :)))
altho that og found family bl i'm working on has five pov characters mwaha :))))) tho that's only for the first part, bc eventually there will be even more pov characters 😈 stuff's gonna get all extra interwoven and crazy~ i have never loved characters more, and everything is my dear soulmate's fault. 🛐💜

i do still love all these jjk characters tho.

all the emojis are purple today bc purple is a Mahito color.💜 according to the figure i have of him where his hair is purple. so, it's canon? and he's right next to me at eye-height on my jjk and Monster Energy drink can shrine (those two things go together?)
and so i look at purple-haired Mahito a lot and then forget that his hair isn't actually purple in the anime and manga canons. oops?
also the Sukuna next to him has red hair even tho i'm pretty sure his hair is supposed to be pink? but i did accidentally draw him with totally red hair once bc of this...
i need a Naoya figure so bad, fjdksljslkldökß. at least if they make his hair yellow that probly won't be wrong right? can't wait to see what his anime character design is going to be.
i actually only ended up on ao3 for the first time in months bc i got dragged back into TojiNao the other day...

haha anyways :)) this is not a TojiNao chapter, this is a Mahito/Kenjaku chapter, but not rlly. but kind of.
ngl i am inexplicably fascinated by and somewhat obsessed with this ship...

the wine for this piece was a shiraz, and the song it tasted like was "Hurts So Good" by Astrid S

---

Humans were so confusing, even when they were sorcerers, and even when they were immortal centuries-old sorcerers like Kenjaku.

Kenjaku always went to Mahito first. He warded Mahito off like a firefighter, but he still got burned; he welcomed Mahito like a kamikaze embraced death, but he still abandoned mission and turned away at the very last second.

It was like every time Kenjaku tried to deny it, even though he was showing up where Mahito was almost ever night, telling him that he wanted him but it was complicated.

Why did it have to be complicated?

Mahito really didn’t understand humans.

He was wide awake through the dark and the daylight, because cursed spirits didn’t sleep while humans did, and Kenjaku was a human. A sorcerer, but a human. But he never slept in any place where Mahito could touch him and his soul. He was disallowed by Binding Vow, most of the time. So when he reached for Kenjaku, it was only ever with his hands tied. But still he reached, and still Kenjaku slept far away from where he could, like he didn’t trust Mahito at all.

Well, he was intelligent like that. He shouldn’t trust Mahito. He’d be a fool to do so. So Mahito respected him for that.

But it still hurt him, what he had with Kenjaku. But it hurt so good, hurt more than anything Mahito had ever felt, which was exactly what made it so delightful.

Kenjaku’s love was like nirvana, maybe especially because of the way it hurt and hurt so good, like nothing Mahito had ever felt, so easy and yet so intense at the same time. And Mahito couldn’t help but wonder how Kenjaku could take it, how he could break it off without saying it, hold him like they were running a yellow light and then dance with him like they were burning in paradise while never letting Mahito reach for him without his hands tied.

Sometimes Mahito wondered, Can you say it? But Kenjaku, being human, never could, but somehow it only ever made Mahito want him more.

His relationship with Kenjaku was so simple, but Kenjaku’s relationship with him was so complicated, but Mahito liked being a complication in the life of the person who made his existence so aching even as he tried to make it simplified, as if he could be the one to hold the reigns of Mahito’s life for him.

But well, Mahito let him, just to make him happy and because he didn’t really care and because it was amusing and easy and he liked to watch Kenjaku suffer for him.

Kenjaku always said that things were complicated, but then he loved Mahito in a way that hurt so good it felt like it had to be pure despite all the rest around it that was so convoluted.

How could it be false, when Kenjaku showed up nearly every night despite everything he said like he wouldn’t? Mahito could make him moan and pant and curse and tear up his eyes, and it felt like power that Mahito could hold loosely in his hand and yet get drunk on like it was just casual and fun even though it seared into his skin that way Kenjaku moved against him like it was the sweetest vice.

Kenjaku could never say it, so Mahito didn’t either. They were wide awake through the daylight only to lower their lashes in the night as it it would hurt too good just to see what they were doing with someone with whom they shouldn’t be doing anything, much less this.

Sometimes Mahito wondered, whenever Kenjaku broke it off, if it hurt too good, but Kenjaku would always be back again like it was nothing at all, just a game just for fun, but the way his hands ran over Mahito’s skin belied his airy words as he sank himself right in like it didn’t mean anything even as he shook like it was everything and more.

Mahito was just a game to him, but that was okay, because Kenjaku was just an experiment to him.

Pain that hurt so good could never be anything human and real.

Kenjaku’s love was just a game, and Mahito was just his most enthusiastic player, because love was a game to him, too, because absolutely everything to him was a game.

Why shouldn’t it be? He was just a cursed spirit; he wasn’t even ‘real’. Not like Kenjaku who had to worry about things like being to vulnerable and too close. But Mahito never worried about that, like a growing mountain never worried about being too close to the clouds or too vulnerable to their caress.

Every touch of the heavens was power that only left Mahito wanting more.

Kenjaku fucked him like it was nothing, but came back to him almost every night like it was more than anything.

By everything, it hurt so good.

Mahito didn’t particularly care to get to feel more human with a human so much as he liked that Kenjaku with him had to feel more cursed.

If all existence was was pain, then damn, existence was good.

Mahito seriously didn’t care about anything so long as he didn’t die and lose the ability to become all the potential everything he could become.

Pain was never a loss; pain was only ever a gain.

Only the nothingness of nonexistence was a loss that should be evaded rather than embraced.

Chapter 75: Toji &/ Megumi’s Mother: Run Devil Run

Summary:

You can call him a devil if you want but Toji's just a slut and a sorcerer-killer mostly

Notes:

heya hey, gonna try to post a couple of these once a week just to have a presence. i'm rlly not dead!!! i think. i'm pretty sure i'm not dead. just very very obsessed with writing that og bl found family thing fully of very traumatized and otherwise fucked up characters who very much need therapy and are going to get it whether they like it or not... eventually. they will all get it eventually. after a million words or so maybe. i'll start posting it before i get that far tho.

anyways :))

due to the song, this drabble ended up being interesting... wine was a cabernet franc, the song it tasted like was "Run Devil Run" by Girls' Generation

not meant to be headcanon bc it def isn't, most of these aren't they're just for fun, but yeah just a little au possibility thing but i hope you enjoy and/or get something out of it :))

---

She’d caught him cheating.

She could smell the abundance of perfume on him. Would he even be able to tell her whose it was?

He had a wife, and a kid. But behind her back he was a super playboy, too much of a bad boy. Why couldn’t he behave?

No fun, no manners, so uncaring, so insolent. So damn hot and he knew it, why not let all the hot girls have a taste? Hot as a devil in hell.

Run, devil, run, run.

She’d get her revenge. He’d better not forget it.

He was caught, and she was angry.

So that devil had better run.

He’d made a mistake. There wasn’t anyone like her anywhere. She was so much better than all those other girls.

What did he want to do with all that, huh? Did he think he was that great? Yeah, why not give all the hot girls a taste.

Hadn’t she told him not to play around? Hadn’t she told him to be good to her until she stopped loving him? Hadn’t she even married him and had his son?

Even if he begged her not to leave, she didn’t care anymore. She’d get her revenge.

Yeah, he was hot shit and he knew it, hot as a devil in hell.

So run, devil, run, run.

---

She’d caught him cheating.

Ah, fuck.

Yeah she’d told him to behave and be good. But he wasn’t a fucking dog. He was a man, and women were beautiful and had skin that was so soft, had boobs and thighs and ass, and who could say no to that?

He was just fucking around. What was the harm? She didn’t want sex as much as he wanted it, but thankfully there was always some hot chick who did. He wasn’t impregnating them, he was having safe sex and everything, condoms and even dental dams, he wasn’t gonna be getting any STDs. He was just giving some girls a good time and getting out some horny energy so he could be a better husband and father at home. He got fucking pissed when he was horny and it went unrelieved, and his strength was too much and got hard to control.

Seriously, he wasn’t hurting anybody. What was she getting all jealous for? If she’d wanted sex from him, she should’ve asked. But she hadn’t wanted it, that’s why he looked for it elsewhere. He wasn’t suddenly not desperately horny just because he was a dad, that wasn’t how biology worked. She acted like one kid of his was enough and she didn’t want anymore, but the house was so fucking quiet, why couldn’t they have a bunch of them?

But she was furious, and he didn’t get it. She even had another kid that she’d had with some other guy, and he wasn’t jealous, was he? She could even go get herself knocked up some other guy, he didn’t care, just let him have good enough genetics to give her a more happy and lively kid than he’d given her, why couldn’t he have a kid like Naoya? He wouldn’t even care who the biological father was. She could fuck whoever she wanted, he didn’t care. So why should she care who he fucked when she didn’t want sex when he did?

But she was spitting at him “Run, devil, run,” but he was Zen’in fucking Toji and he was the strongest, he wasn’t afraid of anyone in this world, not even the fucking Six Eyes. He certainly wasn’t afraid of a non-sorcerer woman.

Fuck, he was the Sorcerer Killer, he was so used to killing sorcerers who were so much tougher than monkeys. He always forgot how fragile monkeys aside from him were.

He’d literally just been defending himself. She was the one who attacked him. But there she was dead on the ground, and he hadn’t even meant to. He just hadn’t been about to let her fucking stab him. So he’d just been defending himself, but she’d been so damn bad with the knife and had ended up stabbing herself.

Sheesh.

Fuck.

Well, he couldn’t exactly face her children after this, really seriously didn’t want to. How could you tell a couple kids that you’d caused their mother to accidentally kill herself? They probably wouldn’t even believe you and would believe you’d killed her and were making excuses. Better just not go back, then.

So he’d do exactly what the fuck she’d wanted and run like a devil, run.

After getting rid of her body, of course.

Good thing he was used to that, doing what he did for a living.

Chapter 76: Mei Mei & Satoru: The Heat From The Sun Is No

Notes:

wine was a red blend called "purple paradise", the song it tasted like was Istasha The Scrub - "The Heat From The Sun Is No" << this song comes with a jjk amv, definitely check it out!!
been collecting a spotify playlist of songs for the voices of my og characters and the voice of this artist is one of them... hehe.

love this artist's music, and love these two characters below as well :))

this piece also ended up weird bc of the song, but in a different way... 😈

i'll have to see if i have some less weird chapters to post next week but this is all you get this week i'm afraid (i need to post the weird chapters sometime ok? can't let even the weird ones languish on my laptop... *insistently feeds them to the void so it doesn't eat my dried wakame from the cabinet again*)

---

The heat from the sun was no matter.

Their carts filled loud to the brim, their backs bent from the weight—

Throw it all off yeah, hey.

Feeling all the silence like a brick to head now—

Spine bent like sickle, hips cocked like a slut, keep it silent, no suicide now.

Call them monetary gain, call them prognositc profit.

Throw all the rocks, more weight, they might vomit, but it wasn’t gonna stop them.

Save face, no shame, no stopping—

No capping their retina, not even with a blindfold, blank, stay blocking like they were locked up no locked in.

Swing wide, go side, never age, soul side, rewind, overtime, doll’s eye, cloud vision, no flash but they were full blind, seeing nothing knowing everything, play pretend, shut eye but smile wide, overclock shifting, no crash but they were offline, all crash but they were all fine.

Fill their cart to the brim, bend your backs to the weight but they’d take it up all fine, bear and wield it like it was all light.

Silence like a witch trial, make them feel lost, murder of crows crow pack, have their teeth picked when they grin, like a hoard of fleas make them itch—

didn’t matter shit, let them come like the tides and make them seasick, throw all your rocks, make them wretch nah make them twitch—

But they were here for the monetary gain or they were gonna profit like a prophet, playing blind but all eyes, saving face, no shame, no stopping, no capping their retina, blank, stay blocking up, swinging wide, going side, never aging, souling side, rewinding, overtiming, doll’s eying, cloud vision like they sky-eyed, overlock shifting, no crashing like they were all fine, if they were ever losing touch then they were out the back like a K.O., couldn’t keep on taking shot, like crack, phantom pains were all they got, bodies in the gutter like no deal, couple of thots like a real deal, bye buttercup pucker-up sweet like a kiss, take aim but then miss, because you couldn’t hit the sun like this.

The heat from the sun was no joke, but the distance of the make a joke of you if you ever thought you could shoot an arrow and hit it.

In the background, split them like a wishbone wing, manufacture it up like fake thing, worship anything because you had nothing, get dragged down like into that like it was a real thing, blackhole sucked, turned into a coiled-up spring, go like a red light, they’d intersect that spot, call them sorcerer-human but they were all curse-divine, making profit off your off-time and profit of your work-time, because there was no shaming nor no stopping such an all-consuming all-time, all blind but all eyes, all smile but all lies.

They were the perfect ones to make all the pieces fall their way.

And so you’d fall to their demand, or no longer would you play.

Chapter 77: Megumi about Toji, Jinichi about Naoya + Satoru: Menace

Summary:

Toji, Naoya and Gojo are all menaces, and Gojo moves like a flying insect with six limbs while Toji and Naoya move like snakes with no limbs at all

Notes:

almost forgot to post bc i am soo sleep-deprived lol, been obsessing so much over writing on that original bl bc *insert incoherent keyboard smash bc i am running very very low on functional braincells rn and passionate emotion makes them fall apart exponentially more severely*

ANYWAYS i did remember before passing out like i rlly should have done many many hours ago, so hiya hey again :))

The wine for this chapter was a Bordeaux red, the song it tasted like was "Menace" by Rezz, which has my favorite song visualizer of all time, don't watch if ur afraid of snakes ig but wow the slithering of the animated cobra to the song is so so so so cool

For Posterity: when i wrote this, Naoya hadn’t been animated yet at all and i didn't know how they'd go about animating his Projection Sorcery, given the way that in the manga it was drawn and portrayed so differently from how it was drawn and portrayed when Naobito was using it, and i also had no idea who is VA would be and therefore no idea whata his canon anime voice sounds like
and as of me posting this chapter, it has still not been officially confirmed who is VA is - even though i was tricked a couple weeks back by the trusting the Google AI too much because it turns out it was just spitting out one of the voice actors people hypothesized on the Reddit forums, and it turns out that every time the Google page is refreshed with the question the AI spits out a different hypothesized VA for him - so i still do not know what his voice sounds like, but i absolutely cannot wait to find out

AND JUST TODAY I SAW A CRUNCHYROLL ARTICLE SAYING THAT JJK SEASON 3 IS AIRING JANUARY 2026 and the trailer didn't include anything of Naoya's voice and it didn't show any clear view of his face but it did include a snippet of him running and i am so excited
something to actually genuinely look forward to in the upcoming year haha
aside from for me more of my life-changing relationship with my dearly beloved, and for anyone out there who still enjoys my writing the actual publishing of my original bl webnovel that i've been putting so so much into

anywaysss, *abusing the html for no reason whatsoever aside from that i'm loopy from sleep-deprivation and nobody can stop me* for all you out there who are somehow here like i am somehow here, i do hope you enjoy and/or get something out of this chapter :))

---

The man moved like a snake, somehow, in all of his movements. Slow fluid hair-raising slithers, vicious strikes faster than the human eye could blink, the unorthodox and uncanny ways he moved his body like no human should rightly be able to, the way he was as ready to use his mouth for his tasks as a snake that had learned to make do without limbs.

The man moved like a snake, a perfectly streamlined predator, a killing machine that went after his targets not to rip them apart but to swallow them whole.

Megumi had always liked snakes, he’d never understood why people were afraid of them and the way they moved.

But looking at that man walking intently towards him like a snake’s slow controlled fluid limbless slither of latent lightning striking power, Megumi felt, viscerally, that now he understood people’s fear of snakes.

This man was a monster, a menace.

Hilariously, Megumi found himself wishing for bite-proof gloves, a large snake hook and a large black cloth bag for this predator to hide in and calm down.

But none of those things would help him when the snake wasn’t just a menace, but also a man, one as inhuman as a naga.

Truly, this man who moved like a snake was a monster.

---

Naoya was a snake, a menace. It was everything about him, really. His wide grin like a snake’s mouth, his lilting cutesy way of speaking like a snake’s hissing, his intense yellow snake eyes that seemed to blink less than they should, the way he moved so simultaneously confidently and smoothly that with his legs covered by hakama it was hard to tell if he was even stepping because he seemed to be gliding, the way when he struck he was so fast you couldn’t even see it.

Jinichi was pretty sure Naoya had gotten a lot of it from watching Toji. That smooth, powerful and almost unnerving way he’d moved, and maybe some of the drawl with which he’d spoke, some of the intensity of his glare and that too-wide pull of his mouth on the rare occasion he’d grinned, and it had never been a good grin, more a display of teeth than anything.

It would make sense for Naoya to have gotten it from Toji. Naoya had followed the Zen’in failure for a few years before the man with zero cursed energy had finally left, Naoya trying to copy him wanting to emulate him, while Toji with seemingly dark mirth had told him that he sucked and was doing it wrong, and then gave him pointers that had sounded like harsh degradation but which Naoya had devoured eagerly like candy and used usually successfully to improve at least some thing, again seemingly to Toji’s sardonic amusement. Toji had certainly humored Naoya, though. Wasn’t like anyone else wanted to have to deal with either of them, so if they were keeping each other occupied then it was all well and good. If Naoya wanted to bother the clan failure, well, he was the heir so he could treat everyone beneath him pretty much however he wanted and get away with it, and certainly nobody cared how he treated Toji who was the lowest of the low. Toji wasn’t a sorcerer, and Naoya even as a kid was one of the strongest Zen’in sorcerers, but nobody cared if Naoya idolized Toji for whatever reason because everyone was well aware that the half of Naoya that wasn’t undeniable infuriating genius was complete nonsensical idiot. He had a shitty personality and said and did completely out of pocket and off the wall things, and he seemed to make a point of disagreeing with everything that anyone said and having his own completely different opinion just to be contrary, and it was probably because of the fact that by even only a year after developing his innate technique he could already best most adult sorcerers. Growing up like that had made him as bad as Gojo Satoru, and the two of them were pretty much the only ones who could stand up to each other in conversation and come out grinning to themselves rather than infuriated and wanting to punch something.

They were both menaces, though everyone in the Zen’in clan did have to agree that at least Naoya was better than Gojo Satoru. Both because he wasn’t as supremely powerful as the Six Eyes, and also because while he was just as infuriating he was definitely less freaky. Naoya might have all those snake qualities he’d gotten from Toji, all devouring mouth attached to a stomach and no limbs to get in the way, but Gojo Satoru was like some kind of winged insect or arachnid, way too many skittery uncannily moving limbs and he could fly on top of it, and then there were his 360° compound eyes like a fly’s but with thermal vision for cursed energy on top of it, to boot.

While Naoya was a snake and a menace, he was still human. Gojo Satoru, though, was something else, a menace that was beyond human comprehension.

Naoya liked to think that he understood Gojo Satoru, though. But Naoya liked to think a lot of crazy nonsensical things, like Toji being the strongest. He seriously just said shit that he knew would piss people off just to piss them off. And it always worked, even when you knew that was exactly what he was doing, because he had this way of looking at you like Toji had and like Gojo Satoru had, like you were utter scum beneath his shoe.

Toji hadn’t been human, he’d been something less; and Gojo Satoru wasn’t human, he was something more; but Naoya, despite everything, was just human. But in only looking to Toji and Gojo Satoru and disdaining everyone else, he came to think that he was inhuman like them, fundamentally different from the rest of them. And that was what made him so madly infuriating.

Monsters and gods could eschew humanity all they wanted, but Naoya was just human.

A menace, yes, he was most certainly that. A menace and a snake on top of it. But he was still just human.

The most inhuman he could ever be was if he came back as a vengeful spirit after death because his impossible ambitions had gone unrealized. Which, since they were impossible, they would. And Naoya, being crazy as he was, if he wasn’t killed with cursed energy would most definitely come back as a cursed spirit just to reach that place, and assuredly without even realizing that just by coming back as a cursed spirit he already had. Seriously, the Zen’in clan had an entire unofficial betting pool going on about this. Jinichi didn’t bet, since his younger brother had always tried to gamble with him so Jinichi had refused to partake in any kind of gambling on principle, but if he had bet, he would have placed money on Naoya, upon seeing that he was about to die from cursed energy, killing himself with the non-cursed knife he secretly carried around for, Jinichi was pretty sure, this exact purpose, just so he could make sure that he could come back as a cursed spirit to accomplish the goal he hadn’t while alive.

Jinichi, if he were a betting man, would also have placed money on getting to see Naoya’s death before he himself died, since Naoya was such a crazy idiot for the entire rest of the time when he wasn’t being an infuriating genius.

Maybe he should have realized, though, that Naoya was too much of a snake and a menace not to live past the rest of them falling.

Naoya was kind of a monster, after all.

Notes:

for the record i love snakes, i own three, they are glorious
did u know that snakes literally slither by moving their ribs? so fucking cool

IF/WHEN ANYONE LEARNS WHO NAOYA'S OFFICIAL JAPANESE VA IS, PLS LET ME KNOW
if not... well, the void devours all. including all two entire bags of my dried wakame.

Notes:

if you liked any of it, don't forget to let me know with a kudo or comment!

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 12 of jjk fics that are all toji's fault